Weather Outside the Window

365 days of Creative Writing Day 1
Highland Garden

I wish I could remember the names of clouds. I would be able to list the names and that would be that. I see white and gray low-hanging poofy clouds slowly moving to the south. But in the foreground, I see seven foot tall Mexican sunflowers standing in our front yard garden. Right in front of them are dark and light pink and white cosmos just a few feet shorter than the sunflowers. A dozen tomato plants pepper the area. Four of them were purposefully planted, but the rest were "volunteers" as my farmer grandmother used to say. (Not being vigilant about harvesting tomatoes last year we let some stay where they lay until it was time to rotatill the next spring.)

The delicate-looking California poppies barely made it. Our plants need to be hearty to stay alive most years. They are beautifully shaded white, seventies smiley face yellow, and pink. Their petals are usually tentatively closed, but velvety and pretty.

The multi-colored bachelor buttons have long since passed. They were the first bloomers this spring. The earliest were volunteers from last year's bunch, but other periwinkle, dusty pink, and purple buttons came from the seeds I planted this year.

The potted red flowers eventually came back after a few days of setting the frog sprinkler in the midst of the tomato plants. (I've forgotten what type of flowers they are and I rarely get red ones, but the they look so pretty in the olive ornamental planter I dragged over from the backyard cement pool deck.

I guess this was a summer for trying new things. Not many flowers for the backyard and a bigger variety of flowers and vegetables for the front yard.

Satisfaction and a comfortable calmness comes over me when I look or work in our weedy patch of wilderness. If I would just remember to water it more often and pick the vegetables before they expire, it would be even better. Next year.