I used to visit and revisit it a dozen times a day, and stand in deep contemplation over my vegetable progeny with a love that nobody could share or conceive of who had never taken part in the process of creation. It was one of the most bewitching sights in the world to observe a hill of beans thrusting aside the soil, or a rose of early peas just peeping forth sufficiently to trace a line of delicate green.
~ Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mosses from and Old Manse
Nate was right. The feeling that overtakes one when you go out to check on the garden and to give all one’s little green children a nice long soaking drink. You train a light, caressing shower over each verdant row, telling yourself that soon, soon there will be flowers and then fruit, but not yet. Patience. Patience. And then to spy tiny fruit!! Ecstasy!!
Such was my joy last evening. I was chatting with a neighbor, with whom we enjoy a wee bit of friendly garden competition. I had not been able to visit the garden in the last four days or so (never fear, there has been so much rain here, we need to start designing an ark!) and I was already pleased as punch to see how lovely and green and robust everything was. But I was not expecting our tomato plants, in all their bushy glory, to have any fruit yet. But low and behold, there they were, tucked away beneath lush, protective leaves. Still so young and tender, they were still fuzzy. Ahhh!
There really is nothing quite like standing over one’s garden and breathing in the odour of “green.” And in this Nate is also correct: it is "a love nobody could share. . .who had never taken part in the process of creation.” I am sure if anyone had chanced by at that moment, they would have thought me quite a loon, standing in breathless rapture, clapping my hands excitedly over the voluptuous basil plants, cooing at the tomatoes and praising the green beans.
But I shall have the last laugh over dinner. ;-)
Oremus pro invicem,
~ Mikaela
~ Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mosses from and Old Manse
Nate was right. The feeling that overtakes one when you go out to check on the garden and to give all one’s little green children a nice long soaking drink. You train a light, caressing shower over each verdant row, telling yourself that soon, soon there will be flowers and then fruit, but not yet. Patience. Patience. And then to spy tiny fruit!! Ecstasy!!
Such was my joy last evening. I was chatting with a neighbor, with whom we enjoy a wee bit of friendly garden competition. I had not been able to visit the garden in the last four days or so (never fear, there has been so much rain here, we need to start designing an ark!) and I was already pleased as punch to see how lovely and green and robust everything was. But I was not expecting our tomato plants, in all their bushy glory, to have any fruit yet. But low and behold, there they were, tucked away beneath lush, protective leaves. Still so young and tender, they were still fuzzy. Ahhh!
There really is nothing quite like standing over one’s garden and breathing in the odour of “green.” And in this Nate is also correct: it is "a love nobody could share. . .who had never taken part in the process of creation.” I am sure if anyone had chanced by at that moment, they would have thought me quite a loon, standing in breathless rapture, clapping my hands excitedly over the voluptuous basil plants, cooing at the tomatoes and praising the green beans.
But I shall have the last laugh over dinner. ;-)
Oremus pro invicem,
~ Mikaela
1 comment:
What a lovely post!
Alas, right now I have no garden except my window boxes of parsley, sage and other green things...but the herbs are so green and so luscious and there is something amazing about seeing them come from just a pack of soil, to little shoots to full blown, overflowing greenery!
To have a whole garden and stand enraptured before it!! Oh, that's not being not a loon but in heaven! :-)
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