Monday, May 18, 2009

Taking Things in Stride


So, we're sitting on our little front porch this past Saturday, as we like to do, looking at the garden and having some water in-between bouts of hard physical labor, when we hear voices on the other side of the screen of Western Red Cedars that separate our house from the road.

We live in a small neighborhood of mixed houses, near the intersection of two roads that run along the crest of steep cliffs, right out on the northwest point of the island. If, for some reason, the houses were to vanish tomorrow, it's not hard to imagine the landscape quickly reverting to alders, Douglas firs, cedars and hemlock (along with the ubiquitous Himalayan blackberry that has made itself so at home in the Pacific Northwest), populated with deer, raccoons, and dozens of bird species.  In other words, it often seems like a Herculean effort to keep the yard from "reverting" to a wild state. Then again, that's the very definition of gardening (and agriculture).

Anyway, we were relaxing, looking at the first of the Himalayan blue poppies (Mecanopsis betanicifolica), when the voices became louder. Looking out toward the street along our short driveway, we saw three women walking west on the road. One of them was in a wedding dress, with white pumps and a bridal bouquet.

"I do believe that's the first time we've seen that since we lived here," I commented to my sweetie.

"Yup."

Not a total mystery. We knew a wedding was scheduled at a neighbor's house. We just didn't expect to see the bride strolling along the road.

Then we got back to work.

No comments:

Post a Comment