Tales from the Microbial Laboratory

~a quick side trip to the old white oak~

Since I'm with my Father for Thanksgiving - on the way back from running a few errands this morning (no, no, no - we were not participating in 'Black Friday' - I was just going to a favorite little nursery, The Garden Spot, to pick up a few amaryllis bulbs for my Dad's window by the kitchen table).  On the way back I stopped off and took another photograph (with my Blackberry) of the wonderful old white oak.

Last photographed here.  With more pasted images linked to here.

~gardenias in late November~

~gardenias...in the wild~

~~~~~

On 6 June 2009, I uploaded this image here, gave it a caption - and never returned to finish whatever train of thought I had...and here I am, nearly two and a half years later - at my Father's for Thanksgiving, thinking that I'd like to post something here, since this space has been neglected for a long time - and what do I find?

Gardenias.

A photograph of gardenias taken in my garden on a warm South Carolina day.

As much as I'm trying to be all grown-up about it (since I am a grown-up after all) - I'm homesick for my southern garden.  I'm thankful for my position in northern Virginia, and truly, experiencing a real Autumn was pretty spectacular - I had forgotten how everything changes and, literally, glows.  But it's obvious that my muse for these pages was my garden - and last Garden Blogger's Bloom Day, I looked out into my rental home's yard, and there wasn't a bloom to be found.

How sad is that?

But I have decided that in a small strip of soil, adjacent to a brick wall by the drive, that this spring I will plant flowers (perhaps all from seed) and I will plant, interspersed in the bed, vegetables.  Lettuces, squashes, peppers.

(The deer are one complication - here I find myself, inside the beltway around DC, and there are deer that come out at night and eat just about everything).

But on this unusually warm late November evening, instead of worrying about deer, or missing my garden, or longing for the sweet fragrance of a gardenia, I'll think about a little temporary garden that will feed me in ways that I desperately need.

(And, I think I need to start writing more here too). 

Happy Thanksgiving - to any of you that still happen to drop by.  Hope it was a good one.