Gardening & Haiku-ing at Dawn

Left side: before, right side: after...

With the high heat and humidity of late, I have fallen into a groove of waking up at around 6:00 a.m., drinking a cup o' joe, and heading out to our yard to garden. At this point, most of my "gardening" consists of removing many of the plants that the previous owner had used as ground cover (such as columbines and daisies), but that instead, having been unchecked, over ran the garden beds. Each year my wife has attempted to manage this, but work and other activities have hindered her for doing so effectively. I, to this point, hadn't bothered to meaningfully participate. While helpful when directed to assist, I had not taken the initiative to address the gardens.

I am endeavoring to take of the time afforded me this summer break to do a full "clear cut." Perhaps because I am not teaching summer school this year I feel a deeper need to contribute, so this far this summer I have been busy, doing my best to establish a baseline "clear" for our garden beds before mulching and adding plants. You'll note from the image above that the grasses we planted a few summers ago needed to be pinned back so that I could get beneath their "plumage" to get at all the things requiring extraction. I know that this is all very rudimentary garden activity, but something about it is very exciting and appealing to me.

Friday morning, clearing columbine and daisies.

An unanticipated (and welcome) byproduct of my early morning routine is the inspirational fodder for the occasional haiku I pull from the time in the garden. For example, this morning I was inspired by the roots of a small, unattractive bush, that I extracted from beside our front steps

Exposed taproot tugged:
unearthed, fleshy brown hairs cling
to dirt clods like dreams.

Much like my gardening acumen, my haiku writing needs work, and I am glad to have the time to work with the soil and my words this summer.