Postcards from the Pumpkin Patch...

         Everywhere the glow of the color orange eminates as we progress through October.  It is hard to believe that it is half-way through the month.  Today is warm, much warmer than it has been for a while.  A bit of Indian summer is upon us.  This it the time for finishing up those outdoor tasks so necessary before the freezes and the snows settle in for the next several months.  Ohio's leaves are beautiful this year.  Gratefully they are taking their time to change to vibrancy.  Always eager to steal a Zen moment.  I enjoyed my mid-morning breakfast in my sacred spot in the side garden.  Dining in my orange-colored cacoon gave me the impression of how it must be to live inside a pumpkin.  Silly thoughts from an old garden fairy?  So much for whimsy...

     The breezes are strong enough to rustle all my windchimes.  Even the tiny windchime I placed in my sacred spot is tinkling its light-hearted tune.  Another wooly bear caterpiller has graced my kitchen door walkway.  Another reminder of how the winter will go this next season.  The sacrifice of my copious basils happened with the first frost in my garden.  Up to that point I had been a harvesting crazy lady trying to get all the bounty from the basils that I could manage.  I could have brought them indoors, but truly it was time to say goodbye.  I usually bring in many more plants to winter over in my studio.  This year is going to be quite different.  This will be a year of letting go.  Soon I will be moving from my home of 30 years into the next as yet unknown chapter of mylife.  It does not look as though I will have a garden in my next residence, wherever that is.  I am not sure I will even have a place for plants in containers.  One acquaintance mentioned using city rental plots for my gardening.  As an herb gardener I'm not sure how fulfilling that would be for me.  I like to handle the herbs a lot for the wonderful fragrance of them.  Having to travel across town to do that would be somewhat counterproductive.  A friend offered her yard for my gardening efforts.  She likes flowers, not herbs.  I do all the work after travelling to the other side of the county while she enjoys the benefits of the garden.  I think not.  I'm still hoping for a place that will afford me a small spot that I can keep containers of herbs.  In the meantime, I am packing, sorting, and pitching a lifetime of collected paraphenalia.  Time to be lean and mean with the possessions that move on with me.  All in all, I'm feeling pretty good about this purge.  I will take lots of good memories of this Johnson House location with me.  I have photographed every inch of this home and property.  Those images will travel well with me.  The orange autumn glow is inside me as well as all around me.  It will be exciting to begin my next adventure in life.  A season of many changes, indeed.  Maybe that little bit of Native American blood in me says, "You can do this.  Celebrate the harvest, then pack up and move to the next hunting ground."  It all seems so natural to me.  For now, I'm enjoying the autumn warmth and colors, and the sound of the windchimes in the breeze...