Outlasting Things

In the period leading up to his departure from this life some years ago, a close friend liked to tell me, only half-jokingly, that to his great consternation he was finding that, despite his several illnesses, he had outlived his money. He was speaking of the funds needed to help provide the large amont of health care that was necessary to keep him still functioning, even at a badly impaired level.

Such a consideration is part of the effort to put through health care reform that's raging so heatedly now, as various dark forces b attle to keep good health care from being affordable and available to everybody.

I was reminded of my friend's lament this morning, though my concern had nothing to do with money, and it was on a much happier level. I suddenly thought instead of how, where my gardening is concerned, I have outlasted my ambitions and my energy, and I don't see how I can can do much about it.

I actually have two gardens -- the upper one, called that because it is on higher ground, and the much larger lower one, which stretches for about 200 feet next to the creek.

These are not gardens in the usual sense of the word, because, except for some Eastern White Pines, not one row of anything can be found in them, especially nothing edible. I used to have lots of rows of things, but now all that's left is a large assortment of trees and shrubs that I planted, as distinguished from all the surrounding and eager-to-encroach greenery supplied by nature.

My trees and shrubs don't call for nearly as much effort and time as regular crops, but the trouble is that over the summer, while my attentions were diverted, the way too vigorous weeds draped themselves over everything they could reach, and now, before it gets too cold, and before Spring, I have to "rescue' most things up to a height of about three feet so that they at least become clearly visible again.. I'm including in this a number of strategically placed, important rocks, which are a big feature of my garden.

It's far from torture to clean all this up, but there's so much stuff that I've planted over the years, apparently under the assumption that I would always be able to care for it as handily as I did at that time. Not too much stuff but so much, and even in a semi-abandoned state it all still manages to look good, at least to my eye.

You would think that this development could've been easily foreseen, but the lesson I think this holds is that it's not at all easy to move out of the moment. Maybe it is backward but rarely forward, for all the looking that one might try to do in that direction.