Surveying our kingdom

A bouquet of sage

Kirk and I have recently started a practice (his idea) of surveying our "kingdom," or, more accurately, our temporary possession of a speck of the earth, in the few half-hours of fading sun before the dusk sets in.  It was motivated partly by a sense of guilt for having neglected our garden for so long and partly by a sense of urgency born out of the realization that the pleasant late summer evenings are not going to last much longer. (Perhaps we should also take a survey of, metaphorically speaking, the state of our lives...)  We therefore, after dinner, don our colorful gardening boots (sloggers--they're called) and our gloves, brandish our gardening shears, and work and walk our way through the various plots in our yard, picking up fallen branches, cutting down dry rot, pulling up weeds or what look like weeds, and generally attempting to retrieve a sense of control over and order in our tiny kingdom and combat, however futilely, nature's tendency to grow wild and unmanageable.  

My attempt in the past two years to add color and interest to our yard by planting perennials and herbs has not produced much to speak of, I'm sorry to report; what tender shoots have survived the frost and drought have been so completely smothered by weeds and dead leaves that they are hardly recognizable or distinguishable from weeds. I've since learned that there is much more nurturing and caring work to do than just putting down the little plants in the ground, about a half-day's work at most; I had assumed that Mother Nature would take care of these little plants and that they would just mature on their own and before long look like their glossy counterparts in the nursery catalogs.  Alas, to successfully tend and cultivate one's garden requires much more commitment and hard work than I have expended; Kirk laughingly called my gardening experiment my failed attempt to live like a "gentlewoman farmer." 

Bloomington is currently under mandatory water restriction due to this summer's drought which has hit hard several Midwestern States.  Our hope to have a new wisteria vine planted may have to be delayed. The little wisteria offshoot which we transplanted from our neighbor's vine is not doing very well either and not likely to survive, I'm afraid.  Here's hoping our transplantation to the soil of Indiana will fare better.