Tag Archives: weeds

A Certain Kind of Light

Posted on by
6

It’s the 7th day of the Ultimate Blog Challenge. I am late coming to the keyboard. Life is busy in this time of my life. My father is almost 95 and every day can be unpredictable. He has congestive heart failure and COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease). We spent alot of time at the doctor’s, walk-in clince and ER last year after my mother passed. We were thankful that this year has been much better. Still there are episodes.

Today was a doctor day. We were fortunate that we got an appointment. He has been seen, x-rayed and on medications. He is tough and still interested in life and this world of ours. I think he will be okay. I have accepted that this is what is and that I still have a life to tend to. I will be okay also. It was just a little difficult to manage a wheelchair and doors alone. Lucky for me that there were many friendly hands to help.

After the doctor, we went and renewed our application for wheelchair parking permit for another 3 years. Then it was time for coffee at the mall with our friends. Life is still very good and beautiful. Good friends to have coffee with help. Then there’s my gardens. My front yard is so beautiful. It is hard to described. It is bathed in a certain kind of light in the afternoon. It reminds me of the opening line in the Bee Gees’ To Love Somebody. For all the issues I have with my father, I guess I do love him.

“There’s a light, a certain kind of light, that never shone on me”.

My front yard has been an issue with my neighbour for many years. She objects growing vegetables in the fron yard. She calls my raised beds coffins. She has reported me to the city about my messy yard. The city does not agree with her. Maybe all of this is because she really does not like me. I find that hard to understand because I don’t have a relationship with her. Now in these times I wonder if it is because of the colour of my skin. And I am an immigrant. I feel my yard is breath takingly beautiful in a certain kind of light in the afternoon, weeds and all.

Ain’t No time for the Blues

Posted on by
1

July the 4th, the height of summer. The flowers are blooming, the grass is growing and so are the weeds. There aint no time for the blues. They’ll have to come back some other day. The house is a mess. I am also. The gardens are also crying for some attention. I have to pull myself up by the bootstraps and get to work.

It’s not easy though. I was tempted to skip the gym this morning thinking of all the weeding and watering. The temperature gets brutally hot by midmorning. But I thought it best to stick to my routine of going to the gym Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings. It’s good for my body and soul. We had an early start this morning and was done by 9. I set to work watering and weeding the back garden beds. It’s gets the sun all day but early morning it is relatively cool. Next I took the whipper snipper to the grass in front of the raised beds. It was a good effort for the morning. I need to do this more often regularly.

My day is gone. The afternoon was spent with my father. My brother has taken over the care of our father’s yard and garden. Since he’s away for a week, it is my job. So after harvesting some Chinese greens, I gave the garden a few drops of water. Then I whisked dad off to the mall for coffee. We ran into our friends so coffee was longer than usual. We were a bit slow getting to my sister’s for a barbecue. It was a busy day for us all.

Now it is almost bedtime. I need to bring this post to a close. I thought about another day off but 2 days in a row might lead to many more. So by gosh and darn I got here to say good night. Till tomorrow then.

Day 4 of the Ultimate Blog Challenge.

AFTER THE HEAT

Posted on by
2

IMG_0810After a couple of days of heat, the clouds and the showers came.  It was a welcomed relief for the garden and gardener.  I took the opportunity to do a bit more planting in between raindrops. Two raspberry bushes went into a sunny corner, right in front of the cherry tomatoes.  One will produce red fruits in midsummer and the other gold in autumn.  I don’t imagine they will fruit this year but I can always hope.

I had really neglected my green thumb the last few years.  It was really hard doing shift work and raising Sheba.  Something had to give.  Gardening was one of them.  I used to spend endless happy hours starting seedlings and transplanting in the spring.  And later, I moved things here and there, hauled gravel and created flower beds.

Somewhere, sometime, when I wasn’t paying attention, everything went to pots.  And as a result, my yard became a mess – over run with ground-covers and weeds.  The pots stood empty except for dirt and weeds.  But now, my green thumb has returned.  The flower bed and pots are lovingly filled again.

The ground-covers and weeds are still running wild.  They will be tamed in good time.