Pat Taub
GUEST POST by LISA SAVAGE
Around where I live people grow food starting in earnest this time of the year. No matter what our religion or political persuasion, once the soil is warm and dry enough, we all of us poke in some seeds.
Some years it rains so often that the seeds fail to germinate and instead rot in the ground. It’s not great but it’s not tragic – we can replant and thus stay hopeful.
When my neighbor up the road was widowed last year, she had a lot of decisions about what she could keep up with as an older woman living alone. Feeding the birds, yes. Stacking firewood, limited yes.
Growing vegetables did not make the cut.
My neighbor down the hill, a 4-H leader in our county, is also now a widow. Her neatly tilled and planted veggie garden is a bellwether of the season for me as I pass it any time I go to town. This year it has rained a lot all spring and I imagine that’s why she was later than usual hanging her shiny pie tins that dance in the breeze and ward off birds looking to eat the newly planted seeds. I was surprised at how relieved I was to see her pest prevention finally in place a few days ago. She must be doing all right, I thought.
My best friend in the neighborhood was a master gardener, also a talented cook, and frequent holder of amazing dinner parties. Her health hasn’t been great since she took a fall and had to relearn how to walk. Of getting around now she says, We all built our houses for much younger people to live in. Even planting and tending the raised beds she had someone make – like really raised, on long legs like a table- is a struggle.
When I see her, she asks how my garden is growing and I tell her. I know she’s living vicariously through me, and through her daughter – another local woman who is especially talented at coaxing food out of the ground. A short growing season around here means she’s starting seeds under grow lights weeks in advance in order to get starts that are ready to put down roots and flourish. That is if the slugs, ground hogs, and deer don’t get to them.
The author’s garden
As an older woman, so many things these days remind me that humans, too, have a short growing season. Even if we miraculously dodge car accidents and cancer, even if we seem to have guardian angels that pluck us out of danger through no effort of our own, nobody’s getting out of here alive.
All the more reason to keep growing and nourishing as long as we’re able. After the harvest comes the frost. To those who see us and love us, the end of our gardening will mark another passage in life. A passage leading, however gradually, toward the exit.
The author in her garden, assisted by her grandson
Lisa Savage is a retired teacher, who continues post-retirement, to engage in organizing around climate and militarism. She blogs at: went2thebridge.org
