Fall is deepening around here. Most days are crisp, most nights are chill. We may have a frost this week, there may even be a little snow. Yesterday it rained for several hours, a cold, chilling autumnal rain.
Today, however, is bright and sunny. This morning I pulled up the tomato stakes in the garden and started the pre-winter cleanup. I managed to snag a few tomatoes; I picked half a dozen peppers that will be turned into relish shortly.
And I watched the bees.
I have started planting native perennials and the blanket flowers (Gaillardia) did amazingly well in the back of the garden. We may move them in the spring, but I have enjoyed their bright colors against the white wall of the garage this year.
Apparently the bees have enjoyed them also. While I worked nearby on the tomatoes, several of them plied their trade in pollen.
I wrote about the bees earlier this summer, when the zucchini blossoms and rudbeckia drew them to our yard. It is good to see them, knowing that they will soon be gone.
E. B. White, in his introduction to his wife Katherine's work, Onward and Upward in the Garden, wrote of watching her plan and direct the planting of her spring garden in the late fall. He captured her as "oblivious to the ending of her own days, which she knew perfectly well was near at hand, sitting there with her detailed chart under those dark skies in the dying October, calmly plotting the resurrection."
I feel the same way about the bees as I watch them wrap up the season. I am already planning on the spring, already anticipating the resurrection.
1 comment:
The last photo is so suitable to this post - the flower nearly in tatters, the bee working on the future honey.
Darla
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