My Speck of Sunshine

Ginkgo Biloba  shining all over my yard!

Today is Fall Grey.
























Some days are deeply impenetrable in that dense, dark color.  Regardless, one can always find spots of brilliance and light, little reminders of the giant sun.  My Ginkgo tree flashes pure, clean yellow all up and down our street, the only radiant tree on the curb.

Fuyu Persimmons--ripe enough to eat.

My favorite of Things I get to do today is taste test a golden, sunny orb from the Persimmon tree.  Grey has no grip on my soul--not today!

Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep

Glorious before become soil again

Passing from alive to not alive is seldom done gracefully.  My Rhubarb has it mastered I observe during the garden clean up Things I get to do today.  No longer erect and crisp, the stalks have lost their will. The leaves lay flattened, exposed, vulnerable and, most of all, beautiful and elegant.

No fear of letting go

What lesson is here?  Is it possible that what lies beyond is more glorious than what we are so attached to in this physical awareness? Consider the lilies. Consider the Rhubarb. Consider yourself.

Savior of the Garden

The flowers of summer are gone.  If it weren't for the Rudebeckia, there would be no color in the yard--the Rudebeckia and the Zinnias.  The seeds for the Zinnias were started late, so instead of the plants finishing off the season now, they are just now getting their second and third blossoms.  In spite of the wind and the rain, they are blooming, blazing and brilliant all over the yard.

Dried Zinnia

This is the third generation of seeds from a single gifted plant two years ago.  Last fall I saved the most developed bloom of the most Righteous Red I could find in the yard.  All winter the wad of brown, twisted shards dried and waited.

Arrow-shaped seed still attached to the dried petal

Then finally it showed up on the list of Things I get to do today:  extract the seeds.  In that process, the Zinnia held a surprise for me:  the seeds were attached to the petals!  I know little about Zinnias except that their intensely brilliant color thrills my soul.  I certainly never knew this.

Among the beans

The odd, shard-like seeds found soil, sprouted into seedlings, and then were tucked into all the places of bare earth around the yard and garden.  And now the payback!  On a grey, rainy day, Righteous Reds reign as the savior of the season.

Lining the front walk.

In Passing

"Slow me down, Lord, I'm going too fast," the song goes.  Well, that happened for sure on the drive back from my mother's place.

Washington side of the Columbia River just west of Hood River

On my way North, I missed seeing the orange marmalade of Fall flow down the gullies of the muscled hills.

Bright moss mounds in rolling landscapes

Won't see this at 70 miles per hour!

Driving back to Portland, a traffic alert reader board informed us of an accident ahead.  Half an hour later traffic slowed to a walking pace with a quick catch-up step in between.  At that pace Things I get to do today include taking time to breathe and relax and noticing art in the highway divider.  That's not where one normally turns for beauty and balance.  But it is there.  Just slow me down.

Blazing Berries

Fall is gosh-awesome gaudy.  No doubt about it.  Why in my yard alone there is enough color to make Tammy Faye Baker look pale.

Barberry

Knock-your-socks-off gorgeous in the far corner by the hen pen is barberry with it electrically sharp spines.  Bright, lipstick red leaves will bring the whole plant to center stage by Thanksgiving.

Harlequin Glory-bower or Clerodendrum

For now it is watched over by the Clerodendrum whose elegantly, old-fashioned-sweet summer blossoms somehow translate into crazy jester hats for Halloween and fall.

Porcelain Berry Vine

The summer preview for Porcelain Berry Vines is more about sound and honey.  The tiny, barely-noticeable clumps of flowers are honeybee magnets, causing the whole vine over our back patio to humm-m-m-m during daylight all summer long.  But fall pops out these purple, pink, blue and gray jewel "beads" that flickers find tasty.









Beauty berries are just natural show-offs.  A table center piece with orange-ripe persimmons and clumps of these near-fluorescent berries is stunning.  In January the bush is a banquet for migrating birds.




There are few words to paint adequately the portraits for these wonders so letting the pictures speak for themselves is one of the Things I get to do today.