The News from Kenabeek

Busy, busy. The green wall is up – leaves so thick we can’t see our nearest neighbour (only about half a block away by city standards). The leaves are so full and dense, and yet infinitely varied – they remind me of some southeast asian art I’ve seen, with millions of tiny green leaves, filling the picture, each one different … and a fine statement of alienation that is, when reality reminds one of art!

Our nearest neighbours are quite close by country standards. This was originally a family compound, with the younger family living in what’s now our house, and the grandparents living in a smaller log house closer to the road. Over the years the original family dispersed southward and the properties were separated. When we bought our house, they still shared a well and driveway; now they’re completely independent. (But wouldn’t we love to reunite them again …)

We’ve had a week of cool, rainy weather – one morning it wasn’t much above freezing! But everything is flourishing. The phlox has flowered, and the forget-me-nots and columbines are still going strong. In thetop rock garden, Icelandic poppies are budding, and in the big front garden, the Solomon’s seal is flowering, and in front of the house the periwinkle is in bloom and the hostas are finally up. In the vegetable garden, the delphiniums are shooting up and the peonies are full of buds. (Yes, the flowers are taking over.) I’ve transplanted a lot of poppy seedlings into the wildflower garden above the top rock garden, since the wild flowers have not taken very well. If the poppies do, they’ll seed throughout the rock garden, giving it the extra colour it needs. One of the things I love about gardening is the surprises, finding out where things want to go – last year I had forget-me-nots at the high end of the lower rock garden, and this year they’re all at the bottom – seeds washed down by the rain. I’ve also expanded the upper rock garden and transplanted day lillies and phlox there, so it now extends right up to the deck.

The black flies have dwindled satisfactorily and the mosquitos are out in force. I remind myself periodically that insects are part of a healthy environment. And if I compare foul air, noise, concrete and way too many people to my “yard”, even at the height of the fly season, well, the black flies win, hands down.

It’s a good thing I like weeding. Another thing about a healthy environment is the vitality of everything in it. By the time I get around to all the gardens, it’s well past time to start again at the beginning. But for me it’s a meditative activity, and a great excuse to be outdoors, hands busy and mind free – possibly my favourite state of consciousness. I remind myself that when we first came here I was amazed at the height of the birch and poplar – 60, 80, even 100 feet tall. The little blue spruce that I started from seed our first year here is now about three feet high; a little spruce by the woodshed which we thought about transplanting when we first moved here, and it was four or five feet high, is now about 20 feet tall! The spruce and fir which march up the ridge from the house are huge, too, and we can’t see very far up it any more, they’re so dense. It’s all about 80 years old – a huge forest fire burnt the area over in fall 1922. We’ve found a few ancient, charcoaled stumps, remnants of the original forest.

As my brother once remarked (about a completely different part of the world), “There’s something to be said for living in a place where everywhere you look is beautiful!”