A day in paradise

This is what I see out of my back windows: the ocean and dunes in the distance, the lake, my fenced-in garden plot with vegetable boxes built last summer and planted again this spring. The boxes are made of local Port Orford cedar, a wood that turns grey with age, rot resistant.

Cultivating these boxes is easy for any age, especially mine.

I stand up the entire time; I can stretch across to weed and to plant, and since I am short, I do very little reaching or bending down. I've made only two planting mistakes last season. The first one is the planting of artichoke plants, the tall plants in the top row. I'll have to wait until they die off from the main stock, and then transfer the little shoots on the ground.  Artichokes take a lot of room and need space to expand as they send shoots that will continue to produce for a few years more.

The second mistake was to plant strawberries in the bottom right box with cucumbers and nasturtium all of which sent shoots out, everywhere.  For this season, the strawberries will keep their own box.

Looking up from my boxes, the sea and the sea stacks across the lake, and dunes and clouds offer their own version of a day in this paradise. I never tire watching, listening to the waves and the birds, delighting in the small and big things that continue to surprise me every time I look this way.

This is whale migration season, and we are accustomed to see spouts from entire families on their way to Alaska stopping around here to feed and play.

I can do some fishing here on this stack of rocks, just dipping my pole in. People do catch marvelous eating fish here. I might just do that!