Alchemy

 Finished writing this yesterday...posted today morning...

    I like to paint in-between writing.

            It's good, because that way I don't mess up my painting, by being impatient. Which is easy to do when you're waiting for paints to dry.

            So words, and paint.

            Paint, and words.

            I'll write some. Let the words dry.

            Paint some.

            Let the paint dry.

            Think some, let the thoughts dry.

            Breath in and out, and let the breath dry.

            Somehow painting and writing in tandem, makes it less scary to do either...

            Let your emotions dry...

            And if you're too dry.

            Dip your brush into the water.

            And make a watercolor...

            And if it's too wet.

            Dry it out.

          And wait.

        Then start painting, start writing again.

Last Saturday, settling into my tent, I saw starlink again. 

This is the third time I’ve seen it.  

I saw it about month ago, in the evening, when I was wheeling my mother around in a wheelchair, for an evening walk, watching lightening. Starlink appeared out of the misty clouds, and floated by, as if taking note of our location. 

On Saturday, it was especially bright. It appeared again and said, “hello,” as it drifted by my tent, a string of white pearls, and then faded out.  

There was supposed to be some sort of comet, in the northeast, but I didn’t see anything, but the stars were fabulous.  

I could not really sleep.   

It was a cool night, but I was hot all day, and hot all night. My ears were ringing---a high-pitched hum, that nearly sounds like some frequency of music I can’t quite understand.

If I could decipher the sounds, maybe I’d know the secrets of the universe.  

Even though the nights and mornings are quite chilly, it so fun to wake up the sounds of happy birds, singing, and popping, and gurgling, and beeping. There have been these cute yellow birds that flit around on all the trees and old fences looking for treasures. Doves keep flying over my tent, hooting. So many of them. I think they know my trees are good place to take shelter in, as it is the dove hunt.  

Starlings chattering.  

There’s a bird that changes notes, to-te-ta.  

One that sounds like a little missile, as it falls. Peeewwuum. It's very funny, and always amuses me. Reminds me of a sound on a video game.

The roosters too. 

All singing.

The other day, my sister pointed out that the different sounds of wings going by were fun to listen to. 

There’s the little whisper of the small birds as they fly by. 

The heavy wings of the doves. 

The wings of birds flying by in clusters.  

The ghostly sounding wings.  

The whistling wings. 

And not to forget the train trumpet going off, too. It’s so humongously loud, I do wonder what kind of mechanism inside of them that can make their horns so loud? That they can be heard at great distances.  

One little trumpet couldn’t be heard that far off. 

But this train trumpet sounds like twenty thousand, I would imagine. Not that I've heard that many, but, when the train blows its whistle, it doesn't sound like no whistling bird.

They feel like they are getting louder. But maybe it’s just because I’m outside a lot, and when you're trying to sleep, they sound so obnoxious.  The trains are so heavy, I can feel the earth rumble underneath me as they pass.

Today I jumped into the canal to cool myself off. It's been so hot in the day, but cool in the night, so the water was freezing.  But today, the sun was shining so nicely, it felt quite good.

I thought I'd keep my wet clothes on, and then work on my hot greenhouse, as it is was in a very sorry state.

The roof is especially needing attention. We had a hailstorm that was crazy. It hit in the middle of the day, a while back, and my sister and I took shelter in our outbuilding. The thunder, and hail were so fierce water started gushing into the building, and hail popped through the slats of the wood. It was exciting being in there with the thunder rumbling. I think next time there's a storm, I want to be in there, so as to appreciate the weather.

When the storm was over, there were big, nearly, marble sized hails everywhere, and massive rain puddles. I stood on our sidewalk, listening to this surreal growl of thunder that continued to echo like an angry lion in one continuous sound.  

This hail was not so good on my garden. My sunflower's leaves were shredded, but the sunflowers did protect the plants below them. Sunflowers were quite a symbiotic thing to plant, as they sheltered the lower growing vegetation from being incinerated by the sun.

Though the hail and wind toppled many of my tallest sunflowers that were reaching way above the chicken coup roof. I was happy that I had taken pictures of them a few days before the storm hit. I liked to sit on top of the roof, and watch them dance in the wind.

 

I made several vases of sunflowers out of the fallen ones, and put them in my house.

  

          They made the most beautiful bouquets.

 Though, the hail really damaged my greenhouse roof which was already cooked, black in places.

Now, in addition to be cooked.

It had abundant holes. 

Everywhere in the plastic. Like holey cheese. I came in there the other day, with the sun shining above, and it cast funny little sunlight spots on the wall.

So, I’ve been bandaging holes in my greenhouse roof, with tarp  tape. I started counting the holes as I was fixing them. And then decided it was a silly idea, because there were just too many.  We also found some discarded plastic that I’m putting on in the inside, to insulate it. Either way, I’m hoping I can make it work. It doesn't look like when it was first created. With beautiful white walls, and clear, clean plastic. Ah...sniff. Which is a little sad. I can't see the sky through this other plastic. But I felt quite satisfied today, patching the holes, drilling in some new plastic into the wood.

I guess, I did say to love the holes.

Pinches myself.

As for the fate of my garden. It was very beautiful. I enjoyed it so much. But the day after the blog post, I posted, saying I'd got the goats under control.

Hah!

Laughs.

Bitterly.

It rained! The rain started sprinkling on my tent, woke me up, not sure if I ever got to sleep, because I was worried that I might need to move the goats. I got up and moved the Billy goat back into the barn. It never occurred to me that the other goats weren't in the barn. The sneaks, broke into my garden, flooded into it, en mass to take shelter under the sunflowers.

The irony was, they were eating their shelter.

When I first saw them in there, I was so angry. I had no words.

They did not respond to my screeching of anger, and dismay. They just kept on eating, and stared at me with zero fear. They knew a good place, and wanted to stay put!

     No!

Bess came when she heard me screeching, and we both got them out.  Though the damage had already been done. My garden looked like a war torn zone, with my pots, and gardening things strewn about, like a great wind of goats had swirled through.

A goat herd cyclone.

Not a pretty sight. My trees. My vegetables! My sunflowers!

Munched. Eaten!

I channeled my anger into pounding posts, albeit belated. My fence needed more posts. I found two, and then I hunted around to find several more rods that sort of resembled posts. And pounded six of them into the ground with the post pounder.

Though my garden has already been munched.

I still have a few herbs, and tomatoes left, and the trees got a good pruning.

I had thought everything was ruined, but plants are pretty resilient, and some are starting to reappear, and my grandma's grape plant is starting to come back. And the sunflowers that are still standing, are fun to look at, though they've been very trimmed.

 The truth is, my garden was really mostly a sunflower garden. The sunflowers were so abundant, that everything below them had so much shade, they were all competing for sunlight.

My garden was beautiful.

It was yellow, and orangy, and brought a smile to my face.

It did its best, and so did I.

It was so jungle-like, I felt quite like I was stepping into some exotic place.

And the irony is, though the goats ate the popcorn that I had planted, someone gave us a huge 25lb bag of popcorn. Much more than my few growing popcorns would have produced.

 And a lady I gave lettuce to from my garden, wanted to pay me in 3 two dollar bills.

            I didn't expect anything in return, but she insisted. So that was a kind gesture.

            My sister, my mom and I were picking apricots at the time, we gave her a bag, and she was so happy to make a apricot pie.

            Then I took some apricots to another neighbor, and she came back with tomatoes.

            My sister brought us zucchini.

            Either way...

            Maybe I'm thinking too narrowly.

            My garden.

            Eaten.

            Gutted.

            Is still alive.

        Still living,

            So long as I give...

            Words.

            Sandwiches.

            Sunflowers.

            They all seem to be coming back in one form or another.  Though there wasn't much to give away to start with. But either way.

            I guess, my garden isn't in any specific place.

            My garden has no location.

            Therefore it has no fences.

            Therefore my garden is wherever I am at.

            In my greenhouse.

            Here, writing.

            Making music.

            So long as I am present.

            So long as I giving.

            My garden will always be safe.

            No holes are damaging when you realize there's nothing to make holes in.

            My garden is protected, even as the goats eat it.

            I'll milk them, and drink the sunlight they stole.

            And give away the energy it gives me, and so...

            This is my alchemy.

            My garden cannot be frosted.

            Snowed on.

            Eaten.

            Winded.

            Destroyed.    

            Or burned.

            It's inside, and outside.

            Growing in places I may not know.

            Flourishing everywhere light still shines.