September/October 2007 Newsletter
Ahhh, October. One of my favorite months as a gardener… The cold begins to creep in and the growing season's hustle and bustle eases away. Gardening becomes a warm day's pleasure and a cold day's escape indoors. This year, 2007, fall came while I was at the Central Rocky Mountain Permaculture Institute. It was still summer when I left mid-September, but truly was fall-leaf-colored when I returned to my little garden in October. In September Independence Pass was clear as a bell, but now snow draped its shoulders. I chose to go around and through Glenwood Canyon rather than risk the Pass.
Driving back home over the mountains carried me into the heart of the autumn colors. Up and over Battle Mountain, aspens so golden were sprinkled into the deep green, evergreen lodgepole forests, and beetle-killed lodgepole pines stood a deep burgundy red, so lovely in their decline. The mosaic of colors ran up and down the mountain sides with the rock faces; flashy glimpses of golden groves in little slotted side canyons popped in and out of sight, and the beautiful Eagle river was splashing and laughing in the bottom of the gorge. Totally breathtaking Colorado beauty!
As I passed Leadville, I knew that the Permaculture Institute was directly west over the Continental Divide. There Ruedi Reservoir generates electricity for Leadville before sending the Frying Pan River down to meet the Roaring Fork. At first I drove past watersheds that deliver their cargo to the Pacific Ocean, and now, on this side of the Divide, all the waters flow to the Atlantic. With the coming season, elk and the bighorn sheep are down the mountain and finding shelter in the lower areas, awaiting winter. Coyotes and 'coons are fluffier than ever in anticipation.
I slow down and relax, enjoying the glimpses and snapshots of this autumn glory. Mysterious canyons bend out of sight and disappear. The water follows. Trees march after the water. I wonder what one would find if I followed… Overhead the clouds move and break like an ocean in the sky. Pattern language of water and air movement speaking the same tongue… roll and tumble on the warm and cold currents. That same language speaks to the tree branching, silhouetted as a river system branches in the earth. The tree drains the sky and spreads into the soil same as the river drains the land and spreads into the ocean. The rise and fall of the hills and mountains create sweet music, singing the mountaintops and valley lows. Mineral rivers flow the rock ledges and ripple through the hills, diving deep like sea serpents in a frothy roll of earth. South Park, the prairie in the mountains, is winding down for the evening. The raptors of the day are gone to bed and the owls are stirring in their beds.
Gardeners are moving towards fall clean ups, bulb planting and putting the annual pots to bed. Even with warm days, the cold nights are pulling the annuals down. Many now, like the tender coleus and marigolds, are burnt by frosty temperatures and done with this year. Other plants, like the pumpkins, revel in the retreat of hot long days and their fruit glow orange in tune with the changing leaves. Days are growing shorter and the sun rises late. The gardeners are reluctant to stir in the mornings, dreaming of new beds for spring of 2008. The gardeners wait for the October days to warm before venturing out. It is the fall season now.
The gardens we tend are slowing to a mere shadow of their July glory and the chores are less urgent. Gardeners pause to remember and embrace the passing of this growing season. Ahhh. The rewards of dirty hands, living roots and beautiful flowers paid in changing colors and fruits of the harvest.
Driving east towards the coming night, a cloudbank lights up before me with setting sun refractions, sparking my brain. The design course mulled over in my head, is decomposing into bits of memory being filed away, little bites, big chunks… just like the forest floor decomposes from needles, leaves and the discernable into humus-y soil. So much of what is created, during a design course and in the forest, goes on unseen.
Exhausted, yet exhilarated from two weeks of teaching and a half-day of driving, I am always grateful to have my home to return to. How I love the Front Range and the Pikes Peak Bioregion. Manitou is so sweet, even in the current crush of building and urban renewal, and retains the quaintness and mystery I love. Lela, blue heeler girl, is always waiting for me there, Michael and the garden, too. Welcome home.
If you have concerns, requests or questions about your fall gardens, please do not hesitate to call. We do our very best to provide good service to you, our valued clients, and we want your feedback. Thank you for another banner growing season, this year 2007!
Peace. Becky the gardener… 685-0290
"The flutter of small bird wings sounds softly,
hidden behind a gentle hush-song of pine trees and oak leaf applause. So much,
so big, so small and untaught, stories emerge through a warm September day.
Elves and fairies, disguised as chickadees, move through the understory…
glimpses here… no, there! Happy and joyous in their day; their time so
different from ours. Short life, maybe. Harsh, perhaps. But ever eternal in
their dancing across the face of Gaia, they stretch through and weave between
our human lives."
Raven 9-2007
"Everything gardens."
Peter Bane, Permaculture teacher
Blue Planet Earthscapes P O Box 861 Manitou Spgs, CO 80829 (719) 685 - 0290