Overlooked

Finally made it into the garden today. It's been weeks and weeks. Late fall is not the most inticing time to dig in. Most of the plants have gone dormant or close. There's just a bunch of clearing out to do, that is sort of tedious. It's toil that has rewards too far off in the future to really appreciate right now. Not so much in the way of glorious color these days.



Digging around, rooting out weeds, clearing leaves, trimmimg and pruning gets my mind wondering. It's pretty nice actually, just occupying myself and helping along my own little piece of earth. I do tend to get caught up out there sometimes, romanticizing a pretty mundane process into something monumental. Maybe gardening is deserving of grand thoughts and maybe its not. I'm sure there are volumes written on the subject much more eloquent than my own. But in the spirit of being thankful for simple things I did think it was worth having a look at.

Those berries I picked have the most beautiful frosty purpley wintery blue I've ever seen. In fact the photo does no justice in the late afternoon light. To look at them up close its like there's a dim light inside each one. I haven't a clue what they are, I just found them on a bushy vine growing in a woodsier part of the yard.



And though I know there is a way to harvest zinnias and replant, all I did was pop off the flower heads in hopes of seeding them next summer. Most likely I'm too late in picking them. I have a tendency to just get a small piece of how to do something then try to figure it out alone, instead of seeking out the exact and appropriate way to do it. It's most likely pride or laziness or both for me. Reminds me of Heather refusing to learn to bind a quilt properly at first from her mom. I think our own wheels just get spinning and we don't want to jump off the merry-go-round long enough to learn how to hold the pony reins...we'd rather just fall off or figure it out ourselves.

Anyway. There is such gorgeous architecture in every little thing in my garden. What design there is in even the overlooked and weeded out items. It is the base of all design really, and where so many of us creatives get our inspiration on how to compose, build, draw and just put elements of any media together. A floral print. A floral crochet pattern. A vine repeat in knitting or embroidery.

And we do it over and over and over again just like the seasons. Love it.

xoxox, Anna Maria