Like a child resisting bedtime, I balked when my husband mentioned getting our yard and garden ready for winter.
He brought the furniture covers out of the shed. I ignored them.
He took down the deck umbrellas, and rolled up the sun shade in the Great Gazebo.
I edged my chair out from under the gazebo’s shelter and stretched my legs in the waning autumn sun.
As Derek cut back the zucchini, bean and tomato plants last month, he said, “You might want to finish picking the carrots before we leave for Ohio. You never know, it could snow while we’re gone.”
I scoffed, but I needed carrots for the stew I was making, so I went ahead and harvested the rest, pausing to reach over the fence to give some to our neighbor.
Then I plucked the last few tender leaves of basil and a lone green pepper and added them to the pot.
The following week when Derek cut back the ornamental grasses, I grudgingly hauled my flower pots from the front porch, and brought out our fall welcome mat and Happy Harvest outdoor signs.
But I was not happy, not one bit, as the days grew shorter, the air cooler, the sunshine scarcer.
Fall used to be my favorite season. Never a fan of hot weather, I eagerly welcomed blustery, gray days. The fact that September signaled the start of school for my four boys might have had something to do with my avid enjoyment of autumn’s arrival.
Yet, lately I’ve noticed each year I begrudge the battening down of home and yard a bit more. I delay packing away my gardening basket, gloves and shears. When the rain comes, I scoot the gazebo furniture toward the center of the shelter, and cover my plump pillows with a blanket.
I know fighting fall’s arrival is foolish, so on a crisp, sunny October day I gathered garden and gazebo décor, packing them away for the season.
My favorite sign went into the bin last.
“This is my happy place,” it reads. And this year more than ever our back yard provided a soul-satisfying refuge from a pandemic-plagued world.
For us there were no concerts, no movies, no nights at the theater, or trips to the beach, but every week we enjoyed evening Happy Hours in the Great Gazebo, and delicious family meals on the Delightful Deck.
With galleries and museums closed, we enjoyed nature’s art via window boxes and pots filled with petunias, daisies and geraniums. Derek scattered wildflower seeds around the back fence and erected trellises, coaxing clematis plants upward.
As we prepared for our trip to Ohio, I begged him to leave the deck window boxes up until our return.
“It will be so nice to come home to a spot of cheery color,” I said.
Of course, it snowed while we were gone and we came home to frozen flowers.
This week, as we entered a new round of stay-home orders, I’m missing my outdoor sanctuary even more. On Sunday as my social media accounts filled with photos of pandemic-panic buying shoppers snaking in long lines outside grocery stores, I struggled to maintain an attitude of gratitude.
After a chilly walk through the neighborhood, I stood on our deck as wind-whipped leaves skittered, scattered and caught in my hair. Gazing at our fence line, I suddenly remembered how Derek had planted dozens and dozens of tulip bulbs along its length before the first hard freeze. I pictured those bulbs patiently resting beneath the frost, the rain, the snow, ready to burst into riotous color in the spring.
All living things need rest; soil, seeds and certainly people.
And so with a nod to Margaret Wise Brown:
Goodnight Glorious Garden once verdant and green.
Goodnight Great Gazebo and summer’s sweet scene.
Goodnight Delightful Deck and al fresco dining,
Goodnight brilliant blossoms, I’ll try to stop whining.
Because beauty awaits us just out of sight.
And all will awaken beneath spring’s golden light.
Cindy Hval 