The Week That Was

So, yes...on Tuesday, the first of my cosmos plants began to bloom with this lovely white offering. It was a pleasure to finally see it. Except, it was not what I had expected. If you look at the photo on the seed packet at right, you'll see (and may recall my mentioning in my anticipation) that I actually planted the seashell variety of the flower...and this is not that.

Now seed sorting is certainly not a perfect or absolute science, so such things are not all that unexpected. You may recall the solitary white cleome that grew from a pack of supposedly strictly purple cleome seeds earlier this summer, in fact.

Not only am I a big fan of the cosmos big beautiful flowers, that once begun will come again and again until Frost, but Owen is, too. They are one of the few plants in the garden he will actually make mention of when they are blooming. And so for both those reasons, I am always sure to include at least a few.

This, as you will see, is sort of ironic.

My friends, I have been quiet with you on a particular subject this summer, as I have spent much time looking into my heart and examining my life and trying to figure out what pieces of the puzzle were missing. There've been a few times that I've alluded to something, or suggested that I had things on my mind, but as I've mentioned time and again, I see this blog more a place to talk about the garden and the good things in life...and I don't imagine you come here to for the Big Bring-Down that Life can be sometimes.

But on Tuesday of this week, I told Owen that I would be moving out. Ten years, I've realized, is a long time to stay in a relationship with an alcoholic who's world view is wrapped almost entirely in his own opinions on any given subject.

I'm not saying there hasn't been plenty of good times between us in those ten years. What an incredible fool I would be, otherwise, to have stayed so long.

But there's also been lots of pain. Not physical pain - that would be much easier to walk away from, it turns out. But the more subtle pain that comes of knowing that someone you care for isn't interested in what you have to say, doesn't care about the way you see the world...or what you think about much of anything.

I could offer a long list of my unhappinesses here, but those have already been expressed to him and it's largely a personal matter. Despite living in Massachusetts, one of the few states that recognizes gay marriage, we are not. That numbers among the issues, though just now I am sort of relieved that we never tied that knot.

He was completely surprised at the two and a half hours of things I had to say on Tuesday evening, which just shows you how f*cked communications have been between us. And that alone encourages me that I am making the right decision.

Owen has asked me to stay, to help him overcome the alcoholism and to give him a chance to make it up to me. To his credit, he's not had a sip of vodka since Tuesday night. The apologies, the roses, the dinner and movie (*) are all nice things. But honestly, I'm not sure that I can or should stay.

Coming to this decision and preparing for it as this summer has progressed has been one of the most difficult things I've ever done. I feel a little broken at this end of our relationship. I need time alone, to regroup, to repair, to reintroduce me to who I am. On one hand, this is a sad thing, but truly, I'm also more than a little excited about the possibilities the future holds.

Of course, I have no idea what those will be. I have identified an apartment, a place which will be good for me in a variety of ways. There are some gardening possibilities there, though who knows just what form they may take. More on that another day.

You, my friends, you and your friendships have helped me through this difficult time as much as the beautiful flowers in my garden this summer, whether or not you knew you were doing so. Thanks.

Just a few of you have had my confidence as I quietly explored my heart and laid my plans, and I offer special thanks to each one of you for listening and helping my thought processes and comforting me and encouraging me to be true to myself. Better friends no man could ask for.


I have received a few emails from some of you who were a little disconcerted by my not posting as frequently this week, expressing your concern, wondering if everything was all right. Well, not exactly...but it could certainly be much worse. How am I? I suppose it's safe to say that I am f*cking Smurfy, which leaves things wide open to all sorts of interpretations.

What do you know, Java's right: these mushrooms do look better with a little person of some variety standing beside them.

And look: the canna lily is finally fixin' to bloom!

I haven't really been watching the Democratic National Convention this week. I'm still tired from all that late-night Olympics coverage. And considering all else that's going on, you and the Dems will forgive me. But fear not, our deaf neighbor Ellie's been watching with the volume up real loud, so even though I've been about other things, I feel like I've not missed a moment.

For those of you who haven't seen the new web cartoon from Jib-Jab--you know they do one for every election now--I'll send you off so you can have a laugh at their latest.

(*) In response to one of my lesser complaints that we never do anything together outside the workplace, last night Owen and I saw Mamma Mia at the local cinema. Not in the mood for anything particular deep, or painfully fluffy and pink or explosively action-packed, this was probably just the right thing. The setting is beautiful, the story amusing and of course, all the music straight from the ABBA library (lest you forget, the first record the Midnight Gardener bought with his own money was the single of "Dancing Queen" lo those many years ago...).

Meryl Streep was, as always, pretty fantastic, and has a surprisingly nice singing voice. Pierce Brosnan, too, sort of...though there was one part near the end where it just didn't sound like him and I wondered about lip synching.

Amusingly, I've learned that the "sing-along" version of the movie hits cinemas today, with all the songs subtitled, because, as one wag put it, "You can't do worse than Pierce Brosnan". There was no need of subtitles last night, though, as everyone in our cine-plex seemed to know the lyrics.

It was a great time, at least until we got to Meryl's powerhouse performance of The Winner Takes It All, which sliced a little too close to the bone for me this week. Still, the credit sequence at the end was pretty fantastic, with its flashy costumes and cameo by ABBA themselves...and we got to hear "Dancing Queen" twice!

The crickets in the neighborhood were singing up a storm when we got home last night, so they don't need the subtitles either. But then, this louder voice drowned out all the others. With flashlight and camera in hand, I followed me ears outside and found this katydid in the garden across the street, it's chirruping sound almost deafening.

It seems to come from the vibration of those membranes beneath the wings visible here.

Just for the record, despite everything else, it's now been 42 days, 8 hours, 33 minutes and 44 seconds since my last smoke.

Smobriety, it's a good thing.

* * * *

"I was in your arms,
thinking I belonged there
I figured it made sense,
building me a fence
Building me a home
Thinking I'd be strong there
But I was a fool, playing by the rules."

The Winner Takes It All, ABBA, 1980

Tuesday Snapshots

Stormy Dark. With Yellow

It was a dark and stormy night.
Suddenly, a shot rang out, a maid screamed.

It is a dark and stormy night. No, really. But I'll get to that shortly. But since there's a break in the weather just now, I'm doing a little blogging as I watch the shot put events at the Olympics.

Yes, I'm on that schedule lately, since so much of the events happen live during our east coast wee hours. If Freestyle Snooze Alarm were an event at the Summer Games, I'd be in contention for a medal.

Anyway, the Garden. I'll lead with this new snapdragon that's begun blooming at the edge of the thistle cloud. It's really the only color other than yellow I'm offering today(and so, James, if you need to scroll down, I'm okay with that...).

It's not that there weren't other colors. As you can see from the long shot below, there were plenty of morning glories, but you know, we've been seeing those everyday for a while.

But yellow seemed like a good idea for this gray morning and so that's mostly what I seem to have captured. The glow of Apollo made a few sporadic appearances during the course of the day...most notably in early evening, when the deep orange light made long shadows outside of work.


But considering how gray the morning was, I think you can understand my wanting to focus on the yellows, like the evening primrose and marigolds above.

Soon there'll be new flowers and colors to share with you, as I've now officially found the first cosmos bud on one of those seashell-flowered plants.

The rain we're getting tonight should be an encouragement. I wonder, probably Sunday morning it will open.



In six or seven different places along the fence garden, you'll find clumps of this threadleaf coreopsis, regularly providing fresh little flowers as long as I remember to deadhead the old ones.

I do think this little guys are pretty enjoyable and I'm always amazed to remember that they have grown so prolificly from the tiny little side shoot that I dug out of my friend Paul's Wellfleet garden back in 2001.

Down below you'll find one of the tickseed coreopsis, re-blooming in a smaller fashion than earlier in the summer. As with most yellow flowers, I think they are pretty terrific, but I do think they are at their best when they mingle with other colors for contrast.


On the way home tonight around 11:00 p.m. was when I first spotted the lightning (I'd stayed to have a bite to eat while I watched the Mens 100M Butterfly swim with Michael Phelps on the bar TV. One more gold medal--this guy is amazing. But I'm not addicted to the Olympics. I could stop any time I wanted. Really.). By the time I got home the storm was ramping up pretty nicely, with some big lightning and heavy rain.

I stayed in the car in the driveway for a few minutes once I'd arrived. Partly for safety, but also to watch the lightning dancing across the sky.

When I was finally inside, I got a few candles lit. The power doesn't seem to go off too often here in Harwich, but I like to be ready when there's a big storm. And the radar map was making clear that this was a big storm.

It has been a lightning filled early morning, some of it pretty dramatic...and only hinted at in this latest series of screen caps.





Since it looks like a dreary mid-afternoon, I do feel the need to remind you that this last image was captured at about 12:35 a.m.
It's very quiet now, as the storm has moved past, a quiet darkness of dripping and crickets, punctuated by a distant roll of thunder receding in the distance.

Oh, and the crack of a starter pistol on television for the one of the races of the Heptathlon (Which always makes me think of the contest they had on Paradise Island to decide which Amazon would be Wonder Woman.). Time for bed!

Autumn Blooms and Some News

Well, even though much of the garden has gone to sleep or to seed (or both), there are still a few pretties to share with you, thanks to our continuing late summer-like temperatures. Today another mum is heard from (one of my favorites!), and here's a shot of the butterfly flower preparing to colonize any open ground.




The cosmos seeds I planted mid-summer are bearing blossoms now, too, though they are on the small side. No less lovely, though.

So, here is the news for you faithful readers. It is now official: we will be moving to Harwich over the course of the next six weeks. Here's a look at the new place (more to come shortly).

While it's not a wilderness preserve like this last place has often seemed, it's still a great place, in a nice quiet neighborhood. There's a nice chunk of conservation land and a kettle pond not at all far away, and the commute to work is about the same, just from a different direction.

We'll miss Eastham, but we think the trade-off for proximity to Dairy Queen and the possibility of pizza delivery makes up for that!

Here's where I'm planning the new garden bed. There's a pair of roses on the fence already and a clematis that climbs the light post, and soon they'll have plenty of company!

We've called the good folks at DigSafe and they are marking all the underground utilities now. If you're moving a garden, or even just moving to a new property, this is always a good idea: its such bad form to get electrocuted or blow up a gas main before you've even met the neighbors!!

Many of my garden pals have been relocated to pots this past week, as I begin the process. We'll be moving later in the month, but I wanted to get these guys relocated before any real wintry danger sets in. We've had a nice warm fall so far, but it can't last forever!

As you can see, these pots are doing double-duty: not only housing some daylilies (actually, these were a recent addition to the garden, from a friend's yard renovation, so they've not actually been in the ground here yet...thanks, Vicki and Craig!!) but also an assortment of solar lights.

Another point in favor of the new location is the closeness to the ocean: we found this view of Nantucket Sound after about a five minute drive!!

Indian Summer Cosmos

We've had another weekend of unseason ably warm and lovely weather and that's just the kind of thing to encourage the cosmos to continue blooming.

I'm taking advantage of that weather to accomplish some other things in the garden (more about that shortly), but in the meantime: enjoy the Cosmos!!

An Autumn Garden

Beautiful day today, even if the temperature is hovering in the low 50s. It was downright chilly tonight, as we had some pretty gusty breezes sweep over us after the day's rain.

I did some garden work this morning, beginning the business of dismantling. The rocks are the biggest deal, so I'm starting with those and have gotten four or five wheelbarrow loads of those carted up toward the driveway. With a nice assortment of blooms still going strong, it makes the work a little bittersweet.

There's a thinner quality to the October sunlight, especially with the cooler temperatures, but that does make the work a little easier. And the light's great for photos, too!

I liked this particular convergence of blooms. There's a nice pink cosmos front and center (sort of), with white boltonia down below, and a happy cluster of helianthus in the background.

Post-Season

Ahh, something new to share: yesterday's rain delayed things a bit, but this morning, this helianthus began to bloom. Wooo hoo, just the warmhearted thing on this chilly (55F) morning.

Of course, the latest cosmos helped to brighten the scene, too.

On the way to work, I spotted this blue heron foraging in the marsh grass as the tide crept in from Boat Meadow Creek.

Welcome October!

October is certainly getting off to an autumnal start, with an early low temperature in the mid-forties this morning. It wouldn't have been such a shock, if I hadn't left my bedroom windows open from earlier in the weekend, when it was on the warm side.

Still, the orange mums in the whiskey barrel resumed blooming this morning, as if to welcome this new month and their blossoms are most welcome.

The back garden is a riot of white and pale purple asters nearly everywhere.

Not far away, the cosmos are blooming like crazy, as a result of our recent rains.