““What’s that?” she says, and I stop my digging, trying to filter out the balmy breeze, as I strain to hear. A day in late October, in one corner of our universe, far up a farm road and closer to the dead end, than the beginning of it, where each subtle auditory marker counts. What might have been a voice, or an owl call, has given way to a Halloween-style creaking. The tall pines across the pond look steady enough, and though leaves are blowing wholesale from the maples, nothing seems amiss. It’s been an arduous job, digging up old iris clumps, dividing and reorganizing aster, sedum, peony, and daylily. Sandwiched between frost in the morning, and baking sun by mid-day, this venture requires multiple changes of gloves, and clothing, and a sense of humor that is reminiscent of high school. We walk to the pond, to fill our water cans, and take a lunch break at the cedar table on the thyme covered patio. “We need a pottery studio,” she remarks, with a nod towards our gardening client’s well-established one. “We need a lot of things,” I say, “but that’s one we could probably pull off. Maybe ... in my garage, or my barn?” I wonder aloud that perhaps I, or, we took a wrong turn in life. Wouldn’t we be happier throwing pots? “Can you make money at it?” she queries. We sit and ponder this, for a moment. “Maybe you need a rich husband,” I say, “and the shipping costs are astronomical, I think”. We contemplate the potential realities, chewing silently through the next few bites of our lunch. “What’s that?” she says suddenly, and we both turn, alert, towards the back of the house, and look up towards the hill. It’s a huge crashing sound, almost slow & invisible in motion, an enormous rending, and tearing and crushing, of limb, upon limb, echoing the girth & aged quality that only something long rooted, can, as it falls. Then, the deafening absence, of something, or someone, gone down. We are still chewing, and I lean forward, picking up my thermos, and carefully refill our mugs with nettle tea, the steam rising as a chickadee alights the chair nearby. Part of me wants to quip “another day in the life of...” but there is nothing ordinary about our day. There never is. “This job seems like it will never end” I feel compelled to add. We’ll have to rely on muscle memory to complete the rest of the planting. Both of us feel tired, for no particular reason other than the intense dreaming that seems to have overtaken us. She takes the truck across the yard to unload the rest of the compost onto blueberries, while I settle in under a cherry tree, to pull up forget-me-nots. The hours of daylight are waning during what is probably our last fake summer. I wash my hands in the pond, and dry them on my pants. I’m not cold yet, or struggling, or turning my face into a stiff wind. That will come, but for now, the warmth is a bonus, and not a dime of it should be wasted. Yesterday, the hills were full of color. Driving out, we take note that most of the color’s gone. The long, green pasture full of Holsteins seems to be receding, under slanting shadows, until the sun is gone.”
