Eden’s Swamp                                                                  August 17, 2013

The Garden has become a swamp!  Surely all creation has purpose and value, but I’m having a difficult time in these dog days of summer finding any in my part of the Garden… We’ve had an extremely rainy season (i.e. 14 of the past 16 days this month alone) and our yard, woods, vegetable, herb, and flower gardens have turned into mushy, gooey, slimy habitats for slugs, worms, snails, and some kind of black, flat slippery thing that stretches as it moves across the wet bricks and moss.

The weather has been so HOT (upper 90’s) and HUMID (100% humidity)—those sultry Southern summer days that you only want to read about—so I’ve been staying inside almost all the time for the past two months.  (Hence the lack of garden blog activity, please forgive!)

I stepped out onto our back deck this morning, careful to balance on the slippery wooden floor. (I fell last week when my sneakers slid out from under me.)  Looking down I noticed a strange white blob, which upon closer inspection turned out to be a large slug that had apparently GOTTEN TOO WET AND DIED.  Really?

After walking the dog earlier today I returned to the house, drenched in soggy sweat, and realized that I had forgotten to bring my key.  No one else was home; the door was locked, so I went to a corner of the yard where I knew we had a hidden key.  Could I find the container it was in under the dense jungle overgrowth of vines and ferns and grasses?  It took me almost 20 minutes of clawing aside vegetation, mosquitoes and God-only-knows-what before I found it.

Soaked and exhausted, I rested for a minute on the porch swing.  As I calmed myself down I began to observe the porch, front steps and walkway.  Along both sides of the cement walk plants have grown thick and green, a lush wall of jungle.  The brick steps are covered with several types of moss, bunches of small ferns sprouting from crevices and cracks, and sneaky vines snaking across the surface in full knowledge that once discovered, they will be ripped out without remorse.

A six-inch five-lined skink emerges from the aspidistra, slinking across in pursuit of an insect that has crawled up on the bricks to the right.  Zebra longwing butterflies flit over the vines and plants near the railing and iridescent dragonflies hang suspended in the muggy vapor over the yard, looking for a place to alight.

At one time in my life I would have been overwhelmed with all of the summer work to be done in the garden.  How can I possibly keep up with it?  But after almost 9 summers here in Tallahassee, I’ve learned to cut myself some slack, use the “furnace months” to stay inside and get some sewing done, write, do some specialty housecleaning—things that have to be done inside in a cool, air-conditioned space.  Guilt-free about the garden, which happily goes about doing what it’s meant to do: grow.

There’ll be plenty of time for pruning, weeding, clipping, planting and enjoying soon enough, when October’s cool fronts begin to pass through and clear the air once again.  For now, I’m getting up and dragging out that quilt I’ve been working on—time to pin it together and get it onto the machine!  Thank you, Lord, for all the seasons, and for the patience and strength to enjoy each in its unique way.