Dreaming of Spring Daffodils and Fall Colors: Gardening During Seasons that Don't Require Supplemental Water

The greatest thing about winter other than the snow is the four idle months to think about spring. Even with work and a college class I'm taking, I still have more time on hand to dream than during summer days swallowed by watering.

Some health issues are causing me to rethink some of my garden plans for Dry Creek.  I just may not have it in me to drag hoses all over to water during the summer.

I always planned on water-wise gardening, and was going for Tuscan-style gardens, as they they require less water than say an English cottage garden, especially since some of our native species, such as rabbit brush, would look very natural in a Tuscan-style garden.

But as we receive almost all of our moisture during the fall, winter and spring, when it is too cold for most flowers, I'm beginning to rethink things a bit.

During the spring, we have more water than we know what to do with.  The snow comes and goes, as the temperature fluctuates, and March through early May, the fields look like Ireland, watered by the continual coming and going of the snow.

During the spring, the ground is moist, perfect for deer-resistant daffodils.
A patch in the old apricot orchard would be beautiful.

Also during that time, Dry Creek is anything but dry.  For a couple of months it froths and foams and a separated but underground-connected seasonal spring feeds our irrigation system though early July.

Marci by Dry Creek.   This is a drought year, so it's a bit lower than normal.

So, why not plan the major splash of splendor for the seasons when no supplemental water is needed?   I can't plant tulips because they are a favorite of the deer, but luckily deer have neither a taste for irises nor daffodils.

The other spectacular season here is fall.  We already have a canyon of oak and maple.  The soil is right, even up on top, and so strategically planted oaks and maple could create quite the fall show.  Oak here don't need supplemental water once established, and I'm pretty sure the irrigation from march to early July would be enough for the maples to get through the long, hot summer as that is what they must do down in the canyon.

Our natural fall colors.  The red is a maple, the orange an oak.

Summer then would be the time for a few small specialty gardens as well as the vegetable garden, which would be planted close by the house, so I wouldn't have as much walking to do.

Flowers in a portion of the vegetable garden--
this smaller area would continued be watered all year. 

These seasonal, water-wise gardens also wouldn't require much care.  Daffodils and irises are perennials and their broad leaves and showy flowers easily stand out even if grasses and natives weeds surround them. Planted randomly in bunches, they have a wild, natural look, and so weeds really wouldn't be distracting.

Letting Go: This Is It, This Is All I Need

I had a simple, profound realization today:  I am Mormon.  I know technically, I’ve been that since I was baptized at age nine, and as I was born into the covenant, in a more general sense, all my life.

But I did not stay on the path.  I’ve attended church steadily for at least the past fifteen years, and have had a strong testimony for the last five.

But, until this weekend, I don’t think I fully comprehended at a gut level that I believe.  Action and belief can only be separated for so long.

I guess, on some level, I knew I would always come to this place.  Although I definitely like the music of Yusuf Islam better when he was just Cat Stevens, I always understood him choosing his path to God over art, even though I don't share those same beliefs. 

I haven’t had a poem published in over ten years, so I’m not comparing  myself to Cat Stevens.  I clearly don’t have as much to give up, but I felt comfortable with not continuing with my MFA Creative Writing Program even though I was nearly finished because I knew it was drawing me further from where I wanted to be spiritually instead of closer.

But, until this weekend, I was still holding out for my dream—to be a well known writer.

Over the weekend, because of work reasons, we took two different cars to Saint George in order to celebrate  New Year’s and my son’s birthday.

We went to a family game center New Year's Eve to bowl and play games.  I couldn’t do much because I was in pain, so I just found a soft bench to sit on, and as I sat there I had this deep realization, this is it, this is all I need.  Not Fiesta Fun Center.  I’d much rather be in the woods.  But, location doesn’t matter.  I was with family and I knew my son was having a good time, much better than he’s had in a while, due to his own health problems.

What I realized is that this is it, this is all I need had nothing to do with my situation.  It had everything to do with my testimony in the gospel.  Anything else is just extras.

That’s when I truly realized I believe.  I drove home New Year's Day on cloud nine.  The feeling hasn’t left me.  But, as I said earlier, action and belief can only remain separate for so long.

So, I’m pulling a Cat Stevens.  Others might negotiate the worlds between their religious belief and art just fine.  I don’t necessarily think one excludes the other.  I hope not.  I’m certainly glad Bono is both a Christian and a rock star because I love U2.  We need art informed by religion.  But, personally, I do better spiritually when I don’t have to negotiate the gray areas between being an artist and a Mormon.

So, as of today, I’m choosing to focus on what I knew I was here for long before I came to this earth:  to work earnestly on being better.

I’ve always been good at adhering to the judge not least ye be judged part of the gospel, even when I was a drunk wandering the calles of Juarez, Mexico, looking for God in all the wrong places.

But I haven’t always been so keen to adhere to the restrictions—diet, moral, media, etc. placed on members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, but that too is part of the gospel, to live in the world, but not be of the world.

Society tries to write off anyone who strives to live by a higher standard as being judgmental, but that is not true.  Gandhi was not judgmental in refraining from violence;  Martin Luther King was not judgmental in refraining from hate; a vegetarian is not judgmental in refraining from meat.

I am not writing off the world of literature, but from this day forward, I am defining myself first by what I have always known—that I am a child of God, born to fulfill my part in the following scripture:

Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect (Mathew 5:48)

I know I will not obtain that in this lifetime, for I am very far from it, but setting myself upon the right path is not an act of ego, as the world would have me believe; rather it is an act of humility (about the first in my life)—because it is subverting my personal desires for something higher.

And I believe in a higher ground.  My favorite hymn is If You Could Hei to Kolab, which ends as follows:

There is no end to virtue;

There is no end to might;
There is no end to wisdom;
There is no end to light.
There is no end to union;
There is no end to youth;
There is no end to priesthood;
There is no end to truth.
There is no end to glory;

There is no end to love;

There is no end to being;
There is no death above.
There is no end to glory;
There is no end to love;
There is no end to being;
There is no death above.

I know my path towards that elusive, future goal is living the gospel more fully today, which includes saying no to some things, including some works of literature, some trains of thought, and some ways of expressing myself.  That may include, skipping over a poem by a favorite poet, or choosing to not read a post of a friend.  If that is snobbish, so be it.

 

One simply cannot live morally in an immoral world with arms wide open.  Selectivity is a vital part of spiritual growth.

 

As I've always had an overly large ego, and I guess I still do, I'll continue in that vein by associating myself with John Lennon, even though in this case, I'm giving up a dream of a fame I never obtained:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Water

Early dawn.  An old travel trailer sits on a vast, red mud plain under a heavy rain.  The home is no longer mobile for it has two plywood attachments.  A covered porch has been attached in front of the door.  It is small, and when one faces the door, to the right, towards the pulling-end of the trailer, there is an alcove to protect firewood from the weather.  The rest of the porch is open at the front and side.  The porch roof slants to the left and a steady stream of water flows off, some of which is caught in three metal buckets.

Next to the porch, the metal trailer side is visible where light comes out of a large window.  Inside, on the table, sits a Coleman lantern.  The figure of an elderly woman moves past on the other side of the light.  Her head is cut off from view by the top of the window, but light can be seen on a dark green velvet blouse and warn, pale-blue skirt.  Light from the window reflects off the rain-pocked puddles out front.

Next to the window, towards the tail-light end of the trailer, is the second plywood extension.  It also has a window, but there is no light.  Water flows steadily off the roof in front of the steel colored glass beaded with blue droplets.

The only other modification to the old travel trailer is the stove pipe coming out of the roof.  Black tar has been coated where the metal stack sticks through.  Here a gray smoke rises against the blue-gray sky.  Around the trailer, tall, slender, sporadic pine trees rise out of the soaked red plain and either a long plateau or a low bank of clouds sits on the horizon.

The door opens, and the figure of the old woman comes into view again as she gets three pieces of split wood from the stack.   As she goes back inside, we see the small room with muddy, yellow linoleum.  Where the butane stove would have been, sits a small wood stove.  Corrugated metal roofing has been nailed to the wall behind it for fire protection, as well as against the ends of the cabinets.  The rest of the walls are a dark wood paneling.  When the woman bends down to open the stove door, her butt brushes against the table and the light from the lantern briefly rocks, setting the scene in visual motion.

Towards the back end of the trailer, an old man is propped up in bed in sitting position.  He is thin, with a narrow, stubbly face and a big nose.  His eyes are small, black and intense.  We see his wife feeding the fire in a scene reflected in his pupils.

Then we see the room through his eyes.  After she closes the stove door, she stands up, and puts her finger in a big pot of steaming water on the stove and quickly removes it.

“You alright,” he asks.

“Sure.  It’s ready though.”

She then reaches up to grab two mugs and a jar of Folgers instant coffee from the cupboard.  She quickly dips the mugs into the water one at a time and places them on the cupboard.  Her wrist is pink from the steam.  She puts in the Folgers and grabs the small pint mason jar of sugar that is on the counter next to a pair of work gloves.  She unscrews the lid, adds sugar and stirs.

She takes one cup to her husband.

 “That should warm you up.” 

He smiles in agreement.

She walks back to the stove, grabs the gloves, puts them on, and carefully lifts the heavy pot of boiling water from the stove.

 She walks back towards the man, but instead turns into the small plywood add-on.  It is lighter outside now and rain can be seen streaming off the roof on the outside of the window.  In front of the window sits a claw-foot tub on the floor, which is also plywood.  It is not attached to any plumbing.  She rests the pot on the edge of the tub, holding it with her left gloved hand, while she bends down and with the other gloved and hand places a rubber stopper in the drain.  She then stands up and pours the hot water.  It steams, barely filling the bottom.  She walks back into the trailer and smiles at her husband.

“One down, four to go.”

He smiles back.  “I tell you, it would be easier to shoot me.”

“You don’t expect me to argue that, now do you.”

“Well, that would be the polite thing, now wouldn’t it?”

“You knew I didn’t have any graces when you married me.”

He laughs.  “What do you mean, I thought you were the queen of England.”

“Ha!   I was out feeding Pa’s pigs first time you saw me.”

She walks past and drops her gloves on the counter as she passes the stove.  She then opens the door, steps out on the porch and rests the pot on the plywood floor.  She then reaches up to the first metal bucket, and slowly dumps the contents into her pot, stepping a step back as the water splashes up.  She kicks the partially full pot with her old black shoe a couple times until it’s under the second bucket, and then she repeats the process.  The pot is too full to kick towards the third bucket, so she bends down and jostles it over and finishes her task.

Then she carries the pot inside and places it on the stove, takes her mug off the counter and slides into the table bench, facing her husband.  She holds up her mug.  “I’m looking forward to this.”

“Nothing like a hot drink on a cold, rainy day,” he agrees.

She look turns and looks out the window.  Runs of rain blur the soggy landscape outside.  “You think it’ll ever quit?”

.   .   .  .  .

The old man sits in the tub in six inches of water.  His one leg is missing, a rounded stub just above the knee.  The woman kneels next to the tub, her skirted knees resting on an old pillow.  She scoops an empty Cool Whip bowl into the tub, brings the warm water up and pours it over his head.

“Hand me the shampoo and I’ll lather up what’s left of your hair.”

Outside the window, rain falls steadily.

© Steve Brown 2016