You know, gentle reader, it is the simple joys of life. On Monday, I mentioned how I thwart my own contentment.
But I do experience some simple joys, albeit they’re seemingly few and far between, and they’re not only recognized and their passage mourned while they’re happening, but I seem to forget them once they’re done.
Case in point: One day a couple of weeks ago, my youngest and I walked out to look at the garden and around the property.
He is finishing the cross country season, and he’s started applying for jobs. Which means that he, like his brother, will spend more time outside the home than in it, and these simple, unscripted, and ad hoc times together are coming close to an end. Not that we have a lot of them now; it’s only because he was grounded from electronic devices that directed him from his room and online games. So he was eager to be entertained.
I’d planted some cabbage, cauliflower, and radishes in September as I expected we’d have a couple of months before it got cold. After all, it was cool a couple of months later in the year this year, with it only getting warm in late June. So I figured it would be warm a couple of months later than normal and we could sneak in a late autumn crop. Well, we had a surprise freeze one night which ended the cabbage and cauliflower dreams, but it only seems to have slowed the radishes down. Which is fine; I like radishes more than cauliflower or cabbage.
We looked in on the garden, and then we wandered to the opposite side of the property by the wind break. I don’t even remember why. But the Osage orange trees were dropping the hedge balls, their softball-sized inedible (unless things are really bad) fruits. So we spent a couple of minutes picking them up and throwing them at a tree some yards off. We had about the same arm strength and accuracy, I’m proud to say, mostly because I’m pleased with my performance.
A nice little moment which I enjoyed even as I knew they were coming too soon to an end.
And I probably won’t personally remember that day too clearly on my own in a couple of years. Like I don’t remember watching them in the now-long-departed sandbox. I kind of remember running around in the enclosed back yards with them when they were toddlers. But once they were in school and I was back to fulltime work, time has been a runaway escalator to our soon-to-be (in a couple of years, which is the future tense of recently or was just).
I just read something that says that when you remember something, you actually re-write the memory with some modifications, so the more you remember something, the less accurate the memory can become.
Still, hopefully the next book on Buddhism or mindfulness will be the one that silences the double-effect narrator in my head who very vocally mourns each passing moment before it passes.
In the time between now and then, we have had the windy days that have denuded the windbreak, but the hedge balls remain visible through the leaves. Something must eat them or they break down very well, as we never remove them but they’re always gone by spring.
They don’t seem to actually grow osage orange trees either; I’ve never been able to get any to grow on my place from them.
Have you cut them open to see if they actually have seeds? According to my extensive research (reading the Wikipedia article), some trees do not produce seed-bearing fruit.
Ours do; when we moved to Nogglestead, I remember thinking that this one growth at the edge of our mowed area was an interesting bush, but it’s a mature tree now. It has done far better than the things we’ve planted in our orchard.
I presume it’s the mowing of the main area where the hedge balls land that has kept them from sprouting.
We’ve also watched a small one grow in the neighbor’s back pasture which must have been the result of deer scat spreading the seeds as it’s farther than we could throw one for sure.
I have not. That’s good to know. I’ll check that next time I can gather some