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Autumnal Memories.

September 30, 2013 by Exangel

by Debbie Naples.

Among things in this burning season:

Perennials at this crispy time, if not completely dead can be heard shouting their last hurrah on the way to the grave. Purple and white asters, aster lateriflorus ‘Lady in Black’ being my favorite, and mums who, by now, are propped up with green garden stakes, I hope. Yes the leaves are stunning, and pumpkins are lying all over the ground, some ripe, some decaying into balls of nauseating slime. Yes I know, it’s all so wistful and Old World, plaid and corduroy are acceptable again, apple cider, hay, scarecrows who I might add are no longer needed, abound.

And don’t bother with the weeds now, it’s too late, they have already gone to seed, they have scattered their children throughout your property, you will have to wait until spring to see who comes up where.

Decisions are always being made in the garden, some of the most important ones in autumn, it is a veritable democratic mass of constant processing, enfoldments, wars, funerals and death. Mostly death. Do not be fooled: gardens are not quiet places of little action. They are hotbeds of chemical and magical labor that operate at a furious pace.

For example: The Fall herb harvest: Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and no time to pick it… Human beings at some point in time developed a taste palate and then at some other undisclosed time, lost it, especially in parts of the United States of America or most of the United States, just to be fair. What happened? Too much sugar on everything, too much salt in everything, doesn’t come in a can, so you can’t understand it?  Many clients of gardeners and sometimes gardeners themselves, desire herb gardens but few pick them. Many are grown but few are picked.

The harvesting of neglected herbs, is a most satisfying activity, especially if one is paid to do it. Gardeners and hired help have reaped the benefits of the busy and oblivious among us for centuries. Basil, dill, thyme, rosemary, fennel, parsley lots of parsley cilantro, tarragon who uses that anyway, sage and god knows what else, all go in my bag home.

Still autumn is really all about cutting-down or mowing down depending. Dead and dying plants poking up and falling over left and right, bruised and decaying plant material everywhere, the medieval scent of mold, the joy of detritus, and one wants to cleanup. Autumn is also about winter. ‘Winter-interest’ that is, or what I call the ‘winter-interest-decision-making process’. “Should I cut down the Miscanthus sinesis, ornamental grass,” you will ponder, “or will it look like a procession of crew cuts on the front lawn?” Better leave them up, hoping the snow won’t collect in the middle and make a procession of hay-pile-blobs across the front lawn instead. “Hmm,” you will muse, “why did I not prune the cornus alba, Redtwig dogwood, enough?” “Not enough red twigs, some have gone brown, agh.” What about the Keria, Kerria japonica… on the border of the yard, will its stunning kelly green wands be lost in the backdrop of the dense dark forest of winter, will it at least obscure the neighbor’s house a little? “Did I just cut back an oakleaf hydrangea, Hydrangea quercifolia? “ That’s both bad and wrong….The list of mishaps, regrets, reflections and scenes of remorse is endless. There is a reason we interchangeably refer to autumn as fall.

And after all the garden bed clean up, the dark tales of cutting back, your gaze wanders to the lawn. The lawn is not the garden. Time to get a rake.

The Rake: The rake is both a verb and a noun, an efficient word. Regrettably, raking rather than the potential compelling physical experience (the verb part), it could be, is often, a task classified as a “chore,” and the rake (the noun part) lies untouched in the shed. Thousands of dollars and hours spent at the gym when people (mostly women) could merely step outside and enjoy the waist slimming activity of raking their acre. *

*Beware The Blower

It will suck you in and seduce you with its time saving qualities, it will use gas and stink it will burn out your eardrums and eventually your dreams…take heed.

 

 

 

Filed Under: EAP: The Magazine, Fall 2013: History Repeats Herself. Tagged With: autumn gardens, get a rake, no blowers

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In This Issue.

  • Who Was Dorothy?
  • Those Evil Spirits.
  • The Screaming Baboon.
  • Her.
  • A Tale of Persistence.
  • A Conversation with Steve Hugh Westenra.
  • Person Number Twelve.
  • Dream Shapes.
  • Cannon Beach.
  • The Muse.
  • Spring.
  • The Greatness that was Greece.
  • 1966, NYC; nothing like it.
  • Sun Shower.
  • The Withering Weight of Being Perceived.
  • Broken Clock.
  • Confession.
  • Francis Coppola’s Apocalypse.
  • Sometimes you die, I mean that people do.
  • True (from “My Life with Dogs”).
  • Fragmentary musings on birds and bees.
  • 12 Baking Essentials to Always Have in Your Poetry.
  • Broad Street.
  • A Death in Alexandria.
  • My Forked Tongue.
  • Swan Lake.
  • Long Division.
  • Singing against the muses.
  • Aphorisms from “What Remains to Be Said”.

In The News.

That cult classic pirate/sci fi mash up GREENBEARD, by Richard James Bentley, is now a rollicking audiobook, available from Audible.com. Narrated and acted by Colby Elliott of Last Word Audio, you’ll be overwhelmed by the riches and hilarity within.

“Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges is your typical seventeenth-century Cambridge-educated lawyer turned Caribbean pirate, as comfortable debating the virtues of William Shakespeare, Isaac Newton, and compound interest as he is wielding a cutlass, needling archrival Henry Morgan, and parsing rum-soaked gossip for his next target. When a pepper monger’s loose tongue lets out a rumor about a fleet loaded with silver, the Captain sets sail only to find himself in a close encounter of a very different kind.

After escaping with his sanity barely intact and his beard transformed an alarming bright green, Greybagges rallies The Ark de Triomphe crew for a revenge-fueled, thrill-a-minute adventure to the ends of the earth and beyond.

This frolicsome tale of skullduggery, jiggery-pokery, and chicanery upon Ye High Seas is brimming with hilarious puns, masterful historical allusions, and nonstop literary hijinks. Including sly references to Thomas Pynchon, Treasure Island, 1940s cinema, and notable historical figures, this mélange of delights will captivate readers with its rollicking adventure, rich descriptions of food and fashion, and learned asides into scientific, philosophical, and colonial history.”

THE SUPERGIRLS is back, revised and updated!

supergirls-take-1

In The News.

Newport Public Library hosted a three part Zoom series on Visionary Fiction, led by Tod.  

And we love them for it, too.

The first discussion was a lively blast. You can watch it here. The second, Looking Back to Look Forward can be seen here.

The third was the best of all. Visions of the Future, with a cast of characters including poets, audiobook artists, historians, Starhawk, and Mary Shelley. Among others. Link is here.

In the News.

SNOTTY SAVES THE DAY is now an audiobook, narrated by Last Word Audio’s mellifluous Colby Elliott. It launched May 10th, but for a limited time, you can listen for free with an Audible trial membership. So what are you waiting for? Start listening to the wonders of how Arcadia was born from the worst section of the worst neighborhood in the worst empire of all the worlds since the universe began.

In The News.

If you love audio books, don’t miss the new release of REPORT TO MEGALOPOLIS, by Tod Davies, narrated by Colby Elliott of Last Word Audio. The tortured Aspern Grayling tries to rise above the truth of his own story, fighting with reality every step of the way, and Colby’s voice is the perfect match for our modern day Dr. Frankenstein.

In The News.

Mike Madrid dishes on Miss Fury to the BBC . . .

Tod on the Importance of Visionary Fiction

Check out this video of “Beyond Utopia: The Importance of Fantasy,” Tod’s recent talk at the tenth World-Ecology Research Network Conference, June 2019, in San Francisco. She covers everything from Wind in the Willows to the work of Kim Stanley Robinson, with a look at The History of Arcadia along the way. As usual, she’s going on about how visionary fiction has an important place in the formation of a world we want and need to have.

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