Back To The Land of......
The sun rises and sets behind me which treats me to the EFFECT that the changing light has on everything. I never knew the bark of a plum tree could BE so many different colors.
Before half my furniture had even joined me, I was out scouting for 'neighbors'.....THIS is just Motherwort HEAVEN....she's all OVER the place. Makes sense, the "edge of the woods" is just EVERYWHERE. There are FAR more ailanthus trees than we need, and with all the leaves dropped, the row of female trees festooned with huge clumps of SEEDS is very evident. (but I have to admit, they're rather pretty, like so much fluffy lace....)
Across the street from the driveway entrance is the most magnificent wooded slope that is simply CARPETED with perfect, deep green Christmas ferns. Undisturbed, totally content. Quite the presence.
My other tip-off that I was BACK was spotting the very first wild witch hazel in bloom in the woods. Once you spot the very first one, your sight is 'tuned' and you begin seeing them all OVER the place. Like tiny, subtle forsythias, blooming away when everything else is snoozing out, having waited all leafy summer for a shot at the sunlight.
I'm not saying that weeds did not inhabit the small city that I did. We DID have a relatively splendid stand of mulleins along the dead train tracks, and yellow dock and burdock and plantain flourished wherever the soil was all compacted and lesser beings couldn't take it. But they were at all times at risk for weed-whackers....I felt like I was too. I could barely note their existence as I treaded water myself.
Now I sit at my small dining table, surrounded by my dear INDOOR plants, looking into the woods - having the luxury to truly drink them in. THAT, my friends, is visual nourishment and I now realize I was starving.
I have to admit, there were also technological difficulties that prevented me from writing when I actually could sit down and concentrate....my 'new' computer wound up being totally replaced THREE times, and this third reincarnation began a frightening nose-dive three more times just this past weekend, but for once I got a GREAT tech support person and she TAUGHT me how to deal with it, FIND corrupted files and FIX them....
So somewhere between the woods and cyberspace, I look forward to being a worthy correspondent once again. I'm still finishing up my move,
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