Two more days. That’s all of summer there is left. Then we’re predicted to have nothing but rain for a week and the endless watering of my germinating lawn and gardens will end. Wonderful warm and dry forest and beach walks will be no more. Sigh! It’s going to feel brutal after months and months of nothing but sunshine.
I’m feeling nervous about the indoor season. I worry about what I’m going to do because reading or doing craft work is tiresome and much harder with only one eye working and I doubt I’ll have the surgery until May or later. The wait is 36-43 weeks from the date one is placed on the list; I went onto the list on August 17th. Thirty-six weeks from August 17this April 26th! It’s a long wait.
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It’s like someone threw a switch. There was no one at Drumbeg yesterday morning. And I was surprised to find I missed the kids, families, dogs and kayakers but the serenity was very easy to appreciate. There was only Sheba, a chorus of crickets and me; I sat on the benches and let myself slide into tranquility. There’s no better way to start the day than Drumbeg.
Darrell came and cemented the fence and gateposts for the vegetable garden and then he built the gate. That left me, happily able to use the spa without trunks. The end is coming to this endless spectacular first summer on Gabriola so I want to take full advantage of every fine day. What a treat this summer has been.
Today the gate will be installed and the wire fencing will go up around the garden. After that: Who knows? Maybe Darrell will build the beds; maybe he’ll wait until Spring. I may find out today.
A neighbour dissed me about my water consumption, suggesting my vegetable garden was “selfish.” She suggested I was using more than my fair share of water so I started sourcing cisterns so that I could install one and purchase water for my garden.
I told Elaine and Darrell about the neighbour and they were outraged. They showed me statistics on a government website about our water and they pointed out that my neighbour lives with her husband and a tenant so together, Stats Canada says they consume 113,000 gallons of water annually for personal use. I consume only 38,000 annually. Elaine and Darrell said the woman should mind her own business.
So I went to other neighbours and told them about my plan to have a vegetable garden. Not one of them had any concerns and most have their own veggie gardens—and, it turns out, I am the only single occupant home on the street so I am easily the lowest water consumer in the neighbourhood. Still, I harvest as much rainwater as I can for use on my gardens.
As for my neighbour, Elaine put it this way: “It’s your water and your well. Its none of her business.” And Elaine is a decades-long resident here. She knows “the rules.”
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Today the gate and wire go up on the vegetable garden fence. It’s been exciting to watch so large a garden space come together. And the day after tomorrow my lawn will be one week old and I should see the first evidence of growth and then, with a week of rain and reasonably warm temperatures, real growth should occur. I can hardly wait to see green.
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