I had a little hunt through the borders yesterday. On the whole, right now the garden isn't looking it's best - I think it's going to take a couple more years before the garden is quite how I first imagined it and I know that it will constantly evolve from there anyway. A garden is a living thing and, much like our lives it may have a rough game plan but will still surprise us as we continue along it's path. Take the great storm of 1997 in the UK which felled a huge amount of precious, ancient trees and caused complete devastation to some gardens and yet these swaths of fallen trees made way for new and inventive spaces. Out of devastation often comes hope.
So, as the rain batters us again for yet another day and makes it nigh on impossible to get outdoors and tidy up the garden it's easy to feel despondent. But that's the beauty of Nature. As you start to feel so many of your plants have been killed off with heavy snow, freezing temperatures and weeks of wind and rain the garden will show you a sign that all is not lost. Whether it be a stray Valerian plant high up in the wall or, as I have found, lots of dwarf Iris that I had forgotten I had planted, poking their too-heavy-for-their-stems' heads above the ground - looking rich and velvety against the sodden earth.
I can look out from the house and see our three chickens, thankfully friends again after falling out for months, having a dust bath in the dry soil of the greenhouse. All I can actually see is a bustle of bottoms; their tails and undersides a mass of down and feathers. Once they complete cleaning themselves up in the dust they will stand up, shake vigorously and a cloud of dust will rise from them like a small nuclear mushroom. Job done it will probably be off to get more food - ah, the simple life!
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