For the last few days the oak leaves have been inching slowly heavenward. The nights have been cool, so they have stayed small and purposeful and brilliant. They are flowers but not flowering, leaves but not leaving.
At this point each one is separate, distinct, on its own skyward pilgrimage. They raise themselves up as if in prayer. They catch the evening light.
March came in like a lamb and is going out like one, too. I raise a silent cheer for lambs, then, and for spring green, pileated woodpeckers (just saw a huge one on our wood pile), fresh mint (sprouting in our garden) and a backyard still in progress.
The double-barreled tree trunk by the fence, it can still be turned into a funky water feature. And the day lilies we transplanted, they may still bloom. Springtime has many charms, but chief among them is potential, the light and the growing season that lie ahead of us. Would that I could always feel the promise of each day.
The fence was built but it needed reinforcing, so on Saturday I helped my brother hammer chicken wire into split rails. A small task, and gladly done. Now his dogs will be free to romp and play in their new home. The fence will give them freedom.
“Good fences make good neighbors,” Frost wrote. But these words are spoken by the neighbor; they appear in quotation marks. The poem begins:
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun …
And, later:
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
‘Why do they make good neighbors?’ Isn’t it
Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall…
Something there is, true. But that doesn’t stop us from building them.
We don’t own a farm — but we do own a backyard, and our greatest export is firewood. The tall oaks through whose branches the wind chatters and sighs, the second growth forest that has shaded us in the summer and given us pause in the winter (how many more wind storms and ice storms can that one stand?) is not healthy these days. We’ve lost a lot of good trees. And at least two of them have been lying for months (even years) in large chunks in the nether regions of our yard.
So on a wind-whipped morning last week, Tom rented a wood splitter and set about the task of turning logs into firewood. He had done this once before, but the wood wasn’t seasoned. This time the logs split quickly, crackling as they went. The hum of the machine and the hiss of the great logs as they gave way lent our yard a lumber-yard excitement. It was an all-hands-on-deck family chore. We were part of an endeavor that has kept humankind busy since the beginning of time — building a fire, creating warmth, staying alive.
It took two days but the heap of logs is now a pile of firewood, some stacked, some not. All the summers and winters the trees spent upright on earth are now pent up in split, brown, burnable parcels. From life to death and back to life again.
Moonlight woke me this morning. It poured through our back windows at 4 a.m. A pool of white light, a bright beacon.
I had no intention of walking in it, but still, it posed an invitation, perhaps even a summons. Get up, savor the moment, look at the faraway, inscrutable, silent, brilliant moon.
And so I did. The orb bathed our backyard in a strange glow, neither night nor day. It made me think of places where moonlight lights the way for travelers and smugglers and lost souls. It was like a dream, except it wasn’t.
When I drove to work this morning, the moon was still up, a tamer version of its earlier wild self. I could almost pretend it wasn’t there.
This year our garden is more colorful than it’s been in years. (See deer repellent, mentioned earlier this week.) And for that reason it is bliss now to step out on our deck, to hear the first birds of morning and to witness the dusky dark give way to light.
Listen hard enough, I tell myself, and you will hear the great engine that is day whir into business again. It will be sleep deprived, of course, because it was up last night until after nine. But it will happen, is happening even now as I write. Our little dog stands sentinel; even he, I think, is sometimes transfixed by beauty, or maybe it is pure animal peace that makes him pause and lift his head. A sense that all is right with the world.
Though we reside in the suburbs, it sometimes seems as if we’re forging a future on the frontier, at least when it comes to outsmarting the critters that live here with us. Owls shriek in the woods, fox wake us with their eerie cries and — most important this time of year — deer forage in our suburban gardens. If they were just snacking on a few oak leaves we wouldn’t mind, but they go for the tenderest and most long-awaited plants. The hostas with their tall lavender shoots, the impatiens, the day lilies.
Last year they ate the buds off the lilies before they could bloom. This year we’ve had a secret, smelly weapon — a deer repellent spray, a “liquid fence” that keeps them away — and a few victories — a riotous crop of tiger lilies in the backyard and winsome clusters of impatiens by the front door.
But we’re not resting on our, er, laurels. We’ve spotted the herds of deer moving through the woods, nibbling everything they can find. We know it’s only a matter of time before they grow hungry enough and bold enough to strike again.
It was early evening when I crossed the yard and entered another world — our neighbors’ garden. They are away and we’re watering their plants. I found the buckets behind the hedge, ladled water onto petunias and impatiens. I marveled at the tidiness, the white pebbles and gnomes, an orderliness I admire from afar but seldom see close at hand.
And then I walked around back. Years of bamboo and white pine stand between our yards. It is mutual, this screen. It is for privacy, of course, and is highly effective. It has kept their garden a secret, the careful plantings of hostas, azaleas and begonia. The sign “Our Garden” and the white latched gate. The charm and innocence of their suburban idyll. I stood for a moment and felt the peace of the place. Then I watered the plants and went home.
We bought our house for its luscious old trees and we learned the hard way (tomatoes, peppers) that we’ve didn’t have enough sun to grow vegetables. But in the last few years, enough old oaks have tumbled and enough light peeked in that I decided to plant some lettuce seeds in the garden. Besides, lettuce is an early crop; it sprouts before the trees leaf. I would have a semi-shadeless backyard on my side.
Still, on the blustery March day when I planted the tiny seeds, I had little confidence that they would sprout. I’m skeptical of vegetables, surprised and pleased when the ground produces, well, produce.
But a few weeks ago the miracle happened — seed, soil, water and sun made food — and the last few nights I’ve stepped outside and picked a few bright green sprigs of leaf lettuce to add some crunch to our club sandwiches. It’s a simple pleasure. But sometimes a simple pleasure is enough.
Evenings are chilly, there are frost warnings at night. For the plants on our deck, the moment of judgment is at hand. Will they make the cut? Will they be allowed inside where it’s warm — or be left outside in the cold?
The choice is not as clear-cut as it sounds. Sometimes I think bringing them in is the crueler alternative. Inside they languish by the hearth, where there isn’t enough light, or in the basement, where I forget to water them. By comparison, sudden death in a killing freeze may be the more merciful choice.
Human nature is weak, though, and I have a soft spot for the large fern. It will definitely make the cut. If only I can keep it alive until next spring. Ah, next spring! It already sounds good.
