Before Ida Rained

I went out parting my way through dry meadows.

 

Spikenard was there.

In a cloud of pollen and pulsating insects.

It gets into my head. Sometimes it makes me wobble.

To physically breathe in that world. Pollen and bugs bits.

And the grasses have yet to bloom.

I have bathed in that cloud my entire life outside.

It's getting into my head.

Pollen and Joe Pye

After all these years in a deciduous rainforest meadow head high.

Like Ironweed

I keep breathing.

It gets into my head. 

The seed head of Ramps slightly blurred from my internal vibration. A life of pollen.

The sun was out before Ida rained.

The grasses light up.

Topped with Ironweed in shafts of setting sun.

In the purple heat, okra has commenced.

In a flitting cloud thick of bugs and pollen washed in hurricane waters.

Magnolia Fraseri

Mountain Magnolia

And the Devil's Walking Stick, Aralia spinosa.

At the Paradise Parking Lot.

With a baker's dozen Thelma Sanders Sweet Potato Squash and three fat sacks of Black Turtle beans.

As I sat de-beaning the plants there were signs the Turtle beans might come out of the shell on their own when they are dry enough. Good thing I harvested them before the next round of hurricane waters arrive. Now to keep the pods dry.

Another hurricane is coming.

Voodoo Lilies

With three amaryllis

Down by the Shores of Turd Blossom Lake near the Crooked Shed.

Big buckets of tropical voodoo and scattered junk

Washed in hurricane waters.

The Roadside Vegetable Garden Turns Purple

Up by the roadside

It is harvest time. Sacks of tomatoes are going to town with me each day and being set free.

Will there be okra? We have been having hot and afternoon thunderstorms.

The vegetable garden turned purple.

Like Ironweed.

Black Turtle Beans are drying.

The roadside vegetable garden is going Goth with senescence already. Growth has come to a stop.

In the land where purple Ironweed blooms overhead.

Ironweed as tall as the 'Morning Light'.

The Reality of The Tall Flower Meadow

I have to part the meadow with my arms to walk some of the paths right now. There is always a certain amount of floppage involved. That is just how things work with heavy flowerheads.

At some point I will part the meadow with some clippers. Not now. The Downy Skullcap is not too close to a path. It is safe.

Not now. I can walk some paths less often for a spell.

Brown Eyed Susan, a tall annual, and the sad buck whipped Chamaecyparis. It followed me home already wounded. The deer bashing doesn't help. Yet it keeps trying to live. Bonsai.

Now I can enjoy the extra color and abundance of path blocking blooms from above.

There are other paths to follow.

Like Ironweed.

More Better

This was never quite right. The lines were off.

More better. I had to embrace the crooked. The begonias? They have been repotted, fertilized, given a light trim and are headed back to The Inn for the final season. They will not be returning.

Squash of the Spaghetti kind.

Enter the Crooked Shed.

A De-Fleaing

There was another bigger, more destructive and more deadly flash flood from a freak rain in middle Tennessee yesterday. The hand writing is on the wall. A de-fleaing is underway.

I moved furniture and all the stuff and vacuumed for three hours today. Indoor flea spray was used.

What is one to do when the hand writing is on the wall?

Keep putting one foot in front of the other.

In order to remain safely in place with your head above water.

Downy Skullcap.

This picture hurts my eyes. There is too much going on. A churning slightly out of focus.

A place to rest the mind.

A de-fleaing is underway.