Commentary by Ward Degler
I’m not ready for fall. I need another month of summer. Because I was ill at the start of summer, the usual summer things didn’t get done.
Let’s start with weeds. I love gardens of all kinds. Hosta beds, rose beds, bluebells, petunias and pansies. I’ve got them all. And all of them are filled with weeds.
It was late summer when I finally leveled an attack. For half an hour a day (and not every day), I donned my gloves, grabbed my kneeler and started pulling weeds. Slowly, I gained on them.
Then the temperature dropped from the 80s to the 40s. The calendar said it was fall. Leaves started dropping, and it was time to lay mulch and grab the rake. But wait. I still have weeds to pull.
Not only that, but there are also other summer jobs I need to do. My pond has a leak that I need to find and fix. I believe the culprit is an invasive plant that grew out of its pot, and the roots perforated the pond liner.
My yard dawns three piles of branches from an early summer windstorm ready to burn. The barn needs repair, and the shed is so haphazardly filled with stuff I can’t even walk inside.
And then there’s my poor little boat. The inside needs to be sanded and varnished. And I need to buy a new tarp to cover it. Right now, it has water standing in it.
Did I mention my house plants? Last spring, I hauled them outside. Now, they need to come back in before heavy frost shows up. And I need to clean my studio and other rooms before I can bring them inside.
If I wait awhile, maybe it will snow, and winter will keep me indoors. Then, I can rely on confidence that come spring, the weeds will be waiting for me.
