Limbo, or the Beginning of the End

Though it's been a warm October and I'm still waiting for frost, autumn's here, alright. I've been in the garden most of the afternoon, tromping rather listlessly from patch to patch, caught up in a cycle of starting and abandoning tasks, distracted all the time by moments of beauty, a raucous wind, and sporadic but heavy rain.

In my travels across the yard I'm seeing all kinds of bees and wasps and I'm very admiring of them. They work, work, work until the cold gums up their muscles, so that they lay nestled inside a cosmos bloom, or belly-flopped on a nasturtium blossom. I'm suddenly struck by the idea to dress up as a sleeping bumblebee for Halloween - and then I remember that the only Halloween costumes I've ever been good at are the ones that require a paragraph of explanation...

Hey, when did the cicadas stop buzzing?

To be honest, I can't wait for a hard frost to come. There's a long list of things to do to prepare for winter and next spring, and I can't help putting them off while there are still dahlias begging to be cut and arranged. How can I argue with the value of practicing and building my design portfolio? Plus, the prospect of rediscovering a big cache of pretty images over the winter is delicious, no? Like opening up a cupboard full of fruit jams - which I am also working on.

Aside from making jam (mostly for a select group of aunties who flatter me into making them more each year) the main jobs ahead include planting a thousand or so bulbs before the ground freezes, and setting up a webshop so I can sell my antique vases alongside the first annual Posy Gang calendar, which I am very proud of. Most excitingly, I'm already booking 2018 weddings! 

So, even though I sometimes feel like I'm just walking around in a flowery dream, today I've gotta cultivate my focus and decisiveness if I'm to get everything done. 

The day is slipping away and my sense of urgency intensifies. I put down my camera, dig out four clumps of a dahlia variety that I didn't end up liking (I will practice dividing tubers on them), and I tear out the whole scabiosa patch.

​I feel better having done these things and head inside just as it gets too dark to see.

Talk to you after the frost,