The passing of time in the garden

It's December 30.  The rain is slowly melting all the snow and two robins--from the flock of 50 or so that did not head south--are in the trees outside my window.  It's hard to say when autumn ended and winter began.  However, notes from my autumn "sketchbook" tell otherwise...

The dark clouds and the strong, persistent winds. The rain as it briefly dashes at the kitchen window. The pair of hummingbirds at dusk, darting around the back patio. The glow of the red salvia, thriving in the cool autumn weather and more vibrant than at any other time of the growing season. 

The lantana, sending up bushy flower-packed stems as if it lived in California, not knowing the frost will blacken its leaves in just a few weeks.  The half moon glowing through wispy clouds after the rain. The large black turkey vultures, soaring on the winds, a sign that they will be migrating south. The sharp contrast of the gaillardia's red and yellow petals as they spill over the retaining wall.

The honeysuckle berries, red orbs that hug leafy branches with leaves that are turning chartreuse. The deep red and rust leaves of a purple ash across the street in the woods. The constant song of crickets, even outside the workplace along a busy urban street. 

The way most of the trees and shrubs still remain green but knowing that it won't be too long before their trunks and branches are bare and exposed.  The raucous cry of bluejays as they travel back and forth over the oak woods hugging our road for a good two miles. The bright chrysanthemums in orange, yellow, deep rust and violet--splashing color in front of shops and on porch steps. The deep burgundy-leaved Pennisetum rubrum, planted in the border, much larger than its brethren in containers.

The castor bean plants, bowed to the ground by the damaging winds. The crispy, delicate leaves of the Japanese maple, Waterfall, as it begins to brighten with its autumn color. The striking pinks, reds and orange of the dragonwing begonias that spill over their containers. 

The hundreds of feathery dill seedlings that are carpeting the potager. The handful of white Queen Anne's lace blooming along the roadside. The feathery needles, soft and delicate, of two Austrian pines, planted by the old horse corral near the farmhouse once owned by Milt, a printer who spent his retirement grafting and planting fruit trees on his seven acres.  The way Milt once casually said to us, "Oh, you should be grafting your own.  Just use RootStock number A Something-Or-Other," and the way he made it sound so simple. 

The walnut trees yet to be, planted by Milt in the adjoining old farm field.  The dead burr oak tree in front of his farmhouse--a quiet giant that sprouted more than two centuries ago--doomed since it cracked in half, withstanding high winds not much longer, and likely to crash on a very still, sunny day when least expected. The handful of leaves that cling to corky twigs on those behemoth arms in an upper section of the tree that's barely alive. The story he told of a young girl--a member of the first family that owned the house--who sat swinging from the tree until she saw three Potawatami Indians on their horses riding toward the house.  The log cabin that sits snugly inside the house, enclosed with 20th Century amenities like wallboard. 

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