Fog Attraction

On a recent early morning, the fog called me powerfully to come outside and feel it, experience its enveloping chill, and see the transformed world it created. Feeling a rush of excited anticipation, I bundled up quickly and grabbed my little camera and notebook.

The distant jagged Olympic Mountain range had vanished. Towering Douglas fir, hemlock and cedar appeared insubstantial as spectral wraiths. Mist swirled enticing tendrils around chimneys and rooftops. Soft and dreamy, icy cold, it drifted along the ridge top where I walked.

In the pre-dawn half-light while I slept, Nature transformed gardens into mystical Tiffany’s diamond displays. With a wave of the frost fairy’s wand, the smoke tree’s fluffy summer puffs became crystalline threads set against velvet burgundy, silver-edged leaves.

Cotinus, Smoke Tree

Heart-breakingly sweet, partially opened pink rosebuds offered petals dipped in sugar crystals. Ephemeral whiteness edged each bloom and leaf. Violet coral bell leaves looked to have been bedding for sugar plum fairies.

Heuchera, Coral Bells

This world will vanish soon, an early morning dream, an enchantment that will vaporize as daily human endeavors resume. But I will carry the memory, a blessing.

Pining

Trunk of an old pine tree halts me. The way it leans – not just leans, but twists and leans like a thickly muscled human body, strong, massive – captivates me. 

Deeply striated bark, like sinew, two limbs outreaching, an old knot where a branch once grew, so very like an eye, chunky gaps in bark form a nose and a vertical, open mouth in profile on the right – the pine appears in motion. Yet I am rooted to the spot, feeling a powerful sense of presence in this tree. I think of Tolkien’s Ents, and of ancient druids who worshipped tree spirits. Twice I begin to walk away, and twice I return. An almost gravitational force holds me in place, in awe.

 

Autumn Siren

'Brocade' Japanese maple and variegated hosta in autumn colors

Scarlet translucency of delicately fingered maple leaves enchant me. Form and color contrast against jungle of hosta. Giant foliage senescing in watercolor striations lures my eyes from tactile foreground focus to impressionist distance. Light and depth hold me as captive as Odysseus tied to the mast, lost in song. I cannot tear my eyes from this magical moment in autumn sun.

Foggy morning

Foggy morning. The massive trees two blocks away, madrona, horse chestnut, Douglas fir, dissolve their edges in the mist, bleeding themselves into the liquid air.

I wanted to photograph my witch hazel from my upstairs front window, but expected the light would be too soft. The tree surprised me. Its citrus colors glow, acid in the syrupy air. I marvel and delight at the bounty of hues and vignettes my tiny front yard offers this morning, despite the fog. 

Witch Hazel

Each leaf of the witch hazel paints a different picture of transition, some nearly uniform orange, some grading from yellow edges into deeper and deeper tones, sinking red at the heart.

The saturated lilac mantel of tiny berries on the beauty bush (Callicarpa) contrasts with the Hinoki cypress’s bold evergreen-ness and, wispy thin whitish-green mounds of Carex ‘Frosty Curls’ that line the path beside the shrubs.

Callicarpa - Beauty Berry

Twin coniferous blue spires of Chamaecyparis ‘Blue Surprise’ frame a bright lemon marigold, still robust just days before All Hallows Eve. 

Chamaecyparis 'Blue Surprise' and Marigold

 

I have not yet had the heart to pull the annuals out of my pots, not while they are still blooming, even though their replacements are bursting in pot-bound anticipation. Soon. Soon.

When I was growing up in suburban New York, my mother would store our out-of-season clothes in a big cardboard box on a high shelf in her closet. As summer (or winter) drew to a close, I’d become bored with the wardrobe I'd been wearing all season and excited to get the big box down and see what old favorites still fit, and of course go shopping for new school clothes in the fall. There was a seasonal smell I can still remember, an intoxicating mix of new wool clothing, new leather shoes and fallen autumn leaves suspended in cool fall air.

Wintergreen with berries and Heuchera

I remembered about the big box and the twice-yearly wardrobe change recently as I contemplated the overgrown summer annuals in my pots, and surveyed the purple, chartreuse, and marmalade and rose-colored heucheras, evergreen grasses, and winter pansies awaiting planting. The annuals are still looking good, and most will until first frost, but I'm itching for a change, just like when I was a kid excited to wear my new fall skirts and sweaters.

Calluna 'Firefly', blue fescue and pansy

 

Cavorting Carrots

Never before has a vegetable so touched my heart.

I found among the mound of bunched carrots with their feathery tops a unique pair. And I do mean a pair. Two carrots in one bunch curled gently around each other, like sleeping lovers. 

Carrots sometimes grow in odd ways. In the presence of too much nitrogen, they fork and develop odd protrusions and protuberances, occasionally looking quite obscene. But these were smooth, neat, bright orange, healthy – they just twined around each other as they grew.

There I stood, in the produce aisle of my local natural foods market, my heart aching to be so embraced, and simultaneously feeling like a lunatic. I couldn’t possibly eat them. Vegetable empathy?

Of course I bought that bunch. And naturally, I photographed the carrot couple – from every angle – outdoors, on a bright blue plate. Autumn gentled the day, and the sun brushed the blue glaze with watery reflections.

Reviewing the photos shook my dreamy state a bit. Some looked more like someone in the grip of a boa constrictor. Others just looked like genes gone awry.  But a few did catch the twosome the way I first saw them – loving and sensuous. I knew I’d gotten the angle right when my heart went, “ohhhhh”.

Am I silly? Perhaps. But not as silly as my friend who suggested pickling the carrots to preserve them like an excised appendix or Einstein’s brain.

Winging it

I slipped out to the back garden on Sunday to take a breather from paperwork. Movement and a flash of vibrant blue on the ground in the shade under the broad Viburnum caught my eye.  About six feet from me, a Stellar’s Jay noted my presence, then hopped deeper into the shadow before winging up into the taller trees and away.

High-pitched trills and a tiny “tic, tic” caught my ear and pulled my eye to the opposite side of the garden. In the uppermost branches of my neighbor’s overbearing holly, an Anna’s hummingbird hovered then perched lightly on a twig. I’m enchanted by its green iridescence and ruby throat – a jewel with a heartbeat.

A sturdy stalk of Acanthus looks like a tower of birds all poised for takeoff.

Acanthus spinosa

The birds, the plants, even the air all seemed to be saying, “Yes, this is what really matters.” If I could just work in the garden, write and photograph, I would be content.