Philosophizing

 “Gardening is the handiest excuse for being a philosopher.”

Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine

And so I wax philosophical. I’ve come to know that to garden is to try to control nature. It involves imposing your will on plants, making them grow where you want, how you want, when you want, sometimes against their natural tendencies. Gardening styles cover a wide range from ruling with an iron fist to guiding with a soft touch to letting things grow, flowers and weeds alike, with reckless abandon. The iron fist approach uses strict measures to achieve the desired results – clipping, trimming, edging. Its designs are formal, architectural, and precise. It is beautiful and labor intensive and not my style at all. At the other end of the spectrum, the reckless abandon approach seems more like an excuse to be lazy. I have always been more of the soft touch sort of gardener. I admit that I’m wrestling with nature, but I try to be as gentle as I can. I’ve grown gentler as I’ve grown older. I used to try to regiment my flower beds into a design with plants growing just where I put them. I set them in sections – a block of poppies, a patch of zinnias, a row of peonies. Anything that wandered from its designated place was moved or removed. But plants, despite all my attempts at control, have minds of their own and nature has design plans too. I’ve relaxed a bit with age and experience and learned to let things go a little. The results have been fun. Now when a poppy pops up in a patch of bee balm, I let it be. When the obedient plant (Physostegia virginiana) disobeys and spreads into unintended places, I allow it. I give most plants that self-seed free reign to choose where they will grow and bloom. I do admit that I still edit some of their choices. Some plants are thugs and will overpower a flowerbed if you let them. I have to keep forget-me-nots and johnny-jump-ups from running rampant over everything. I let them bloom because they are lovely, but I rip them out before they set seed. Even then, they manage to spread and that’s okay. I actually prefer removing excess enthusiastic plants over coddling reluctant and fussy ones. Allowing my flowers free reign brings me happy surprises every year – foxgloves that spring up among lupines, cornflowers in the columbines, sweet peas climbing through a rose bush. Usually the result is far better than anything I could have planned.

Some formal style gardens.

My gardens are not formal.

But weeds are a different story. I wage unremitting war with them. I’ve learned the hard way that to miss one or two and let them mature and set seed leads to endless cycles of work. One galinsoga plant (Galinsoga parviflora) can produce 7,500 seeds. One chickweed plant (Stellaria media) can produce 30,000. One purslane plant (Portulaca oleracea) can produce 240,000. And corn speedwell (Veronica arvensis) –  250,000! The odds of eradicating them are not in my favor, but I persist. Some plants, if you let them get established, are almost impossible to remove. Burdock roots (Arctium lappa) go down three feet and bitter dock (Rumex obtusifolius) has a taproot that goes down more than four feet. I’ve never successfully pulled one up or even dug one out and any tiny bit of root left in the ground regrows. Both those plants grow all over my yard in the wilder corners, out in the meadow, and in the orchard. I let them be as long as they stay out there, but I will not let them invade my garden. They are edible, as are most of the weeds I battle, but unless things get very desperate, I won’t be eating any of them. I guess I like having them out there knowing I can eat them if I need to.

Weeds I wage war with (clock wise from top left): galinsoga, purslane, speedwell, chickweed.

As far as eating goes, we are enjoying the first fruits of summer. We’ve already eaten the first picking of broccoli. We are eating lettuce several times a week. I picked the garlic scapes and Miriam transformed them into delicious pesto that we ate on homemade pasta. Soon there will be peas and cauliflower. Later there will be green beans, onions, cabbage, summer squash, new potatoes, and sweet corn. These are the days when I get to go “shopping” in the garden for things to eat for dinner.

My vegetable beds.

A basket of garlic scapes.

The cabbage patch.

The first days of summer have been beautiful – warm and sunny. Summer mornings are the best in all the year for taking long walks. The air is still cool, everything is dewy, often there is ground mist which lends an air of the primeval to the world. I try never to miss a summer sunrise. The warm weather has been nice, but we could use some rain. Every time the forecast calls for it, the rain, if it falls at all, is just a few minutes long, not enough to even tamp down the dust.

On a morning walk last week.

On a morning walk last week.

I often see deer on my morning walks down by the beaver pond.

After the fox attack down at the barn, I had a group of six rogue hens who would not sleep in the coop at night. I never figured out where they were roosting, but every morning when I went down to open the coop, they were already out patrolling the front lawn. I didn’t mind that so much, but these hens inspired other hens to fly over the fence and join them in their wanderings. It got to the point where there were a dozen or more of them out in the front yard. And that wouldn’t have been a problem either except they decided that the best place to scratch and make dust baths was in my front flowerbeds. That was too much. On Tuesday, after the flock had gone to roost for the night, Stacey, Miriam, and I went into the coop and clipped wings. But that didn’t solve the problem of the rogue hens because they weren’t in the coop. So the next day at feeding time, when all the flock, including the rogue hens, were in the run eating, Hannah, Stacey, and I herded them all into the coop and shut them in. That night Stacey and I went down and clipped the wings of the offending six. Then on Thursday, I spent most of the morning redoing the fence around the run, reinforcing it, closing up any gaps. When I finished, I felt sure that none of the hens with their newly clipped wings would be able to get out of the run. So far it has worked.

After my morning’s exertions in the chicken yard, I spent the warmest part of Thursday afternoon sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch in the shade of two huge maples listening to Ray Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine. It is a ritual I’ve kept over the years, reading (or listening) to that book in the first days of the season, falling in love again and again with another man’s childhood summers that are also, somehow, mine. Sitting there rocking and listening, I could smell the mock orange bush at the corner of the house mixed with the sweet perfume of the clover in the lawn baking under the summer sun. I could see the chickens (all of them now securely incarcerated in their run), sunning themselves and taking luxurious dust baths. It was quiet except for the reader’s voice and birdsong from every side. I wish I could invite the whole world to sit for an afternoon like that and to feel a little tranquility and let the loveliness of a summer’s day soothe their souls. I think most people need some soothing these days.

The mock orange at the corner of the house.

The Fosters arrived on Thursday evening. They came because of the Big Event that took place yesterday. Stacey’s employer, John Rigas, passed away last September. At the time of his passing, his family held a private funeral, but decided to hold a memorial service later. That took place yesterday. There was a lot of planning and preparing leading up to the event and our family was very involved in it. Stacey was Mr. Rigas’s personal assistant for the last five and a half years of his life. She put together a display of items from Mr. Rigas’s life. Hannah, who works for one of the Rigas companies, Wending Creek Farms, and Miriam, who works for the family from time to time doing projects, were recruited to work on the memorial service. Ellen, the only Rigas daughter, was the driving force behind the memorial. She asked Sarah to be in charge of overseeing the whole event. Geoffrey, way out in Utah, was asked to edit several video presentations. At the event the itself, the Howes, Fosters, and Shilligs all had jobs to do. The event was a memorial service with the public invited followed by a by invitation only dinner.

The public memorial service was held at the Consistory in Coudersport. About 300 people attended the memorial and 200 came to the dinner afterwards. It was a very nice event. Mr. Rigas’s children and grandchildren spoke and recounted the events of his remarkable life and told of the happy memories they had of him. The video presentations with photos of him and his family and scenes from his life were very moving. At the dinner, which was held under a tent on the Rigas's property, there was good food and everyone there seemed happy to be with each other. At the end of the day there was a spectacular fireworks display over the borough of Coudersport with the finest grand finale I’ve ever seen.

The Coudersport Consistory.

The tent at Rigas's.

Under the tent.

Sarah and Tosh left for home early this morning. We were sad to see them go. It seemed like they just got here. We’ve needed rain and apparently, while we were at church, a storm came through here. When we got home there was a puddle in the driveway and some of my potted plants were blown over. I’m sorry we missed it. I like a good storm. But now the sun is out again already. I hope there is more rain coming. Church went long today because we had a baptismal service after our regular meetings. Now we’re home and we haven’t eaten lunch yet and it’s almost time to do the chores already. The week ahead looks relatively calm here. With yesterday’s memorial service behind us, things should be routine for a while. The next big event is Independence Day. The Thayns are coming up for that. They will arrive on Friday. Things will liven up here then. Until then we keep doing what we always do. Good Sabbath.