The moving process is never for the faint-hearted, but if you find you must move, it does give you an opportunity to update your perspective and purge some baggage, which is good for both mental and physical health.

So, in addition to downsizing papers and possessions, I’ve revised and simplified my landscape plan to reflect letting it go and simply making it presentable for sale soon.  This leads to more “being here now”, and less being heavily invested, emotionally and financially, in a theoretical future which may never happen.  It’s a big compromise for me buying a few conventional perennials at Lowes instead of sustainable natives to restore habitat, but it’s freeing in a way.

I may or may never have another opportunity to resume my pursuits, albeit on a much smaller scale, but I know I did my best under the circumstances, which weren’t always easy.  Not to mention, I’m older and more tired, so I’m just being realistic.

The next owners may or may not appreciate or maintain the gardens I created anyway, so all I can do is leave it more aesthetically and environmentally pleasing than I found it, and let it go.  I know if I were them, I’d be delighted to discover all the beautiful flowers, trees, and edibles appearing each year, some of which even I haven’t seen yet.  Or it could become a big sterile development, but it’s no longer my problem.

So I’m just enjoying what’s here now, and new flowers finally blooming for the first time.  It never gets old.  The only things getting old are me and the hideous cicada swarms.  Between them and the extreme heat, I had to cut work outside short.  Here’s what’s happening with or without me.

We’re in some kind of unseasonable heat wave that’s affecting the whole northeast as well, rising into the 90s for the next week or so.  I hear hurricane season is starting early again for the ?th year in a row, and no doubt will be worse than ever.  Extreme tornadoes are no longer isolated or limited to tornado alley, so I guess moving back to the midwest is no riskier than anywhere else these days.  No place is safe from climate change.  Or deadly viruses.

On the other hand, we in the southeast are the particularly lucky recipients of swarms of dead and dying cicadas piled up everywhere.  You can’t walk outside without cicadas crunching underfoot or dropping on you, and the stench is awful.  The continuous buzz gets louder each day.  In some places, you can’t see the ground.  It’s unpleasant just stepping outside.  It’s like a horror movie.  I think they’ve scared off most of the birds and other critters.  Misu likes them, of course.  No accounting for tastes.  I’m not going to treat you to photos of them, because it’s just too creepy.

Instead, here are the few cicada-less flowers I could find, and Misu doing what she does best (when she’s not stalking renegade cicadas).

Today is the seventh anniversary of us together.  We’ve been through some literal and figurative transitions, for sure.  Our next will probably be back in Ohio.  Life can be strange!  But we carry on.  Misu thinks it was worth it!

Tomorrow marks our 7th year together.  Here are some suitably festive photos.

We have:

a skink being menaced by a cicada,

a Misu decadently lounging on her expanded orchid-less sill,

a bee loaded down with pollen,

some bleeding hearts,

brownies by E and See’s from The Bobs (we love you),

a rose campion blooming dark pink,

an iris,

and the CA rock garden looking fabulous.

I’m still sad, but no better way to distract myself than to tick off more garden jobs.

I sorted and cleaned up the remainder of the tomato seedlings for hopefully pawning off on the neighbors, and same with the tropicals.  (The orchids went to Avdi, so they’re accounted for.  Misu now has the whole windowsill.)  I also gave my son lots of tomato and pepper plants to take home.  Now I just have a few herb seedlings to plant.

Then I took my native tree/shrub seeds out of stratification in the fridge, and potted them up.  To review: paw paw, persimmon, witch hazel, serviceberry, and elderberry.  Now I just wait for them to germinate, divide them up into individual pots, give them time to acclimate all season, and then decide what to do with them, now that the original plan has changed.

I forgot to mention, I served the first harvest of salad greens to Avdi while he was here.  Much of what I planted came up, but grudgingly, as the soil is still like concrete (clay and rocks) despite my best efforts to improve it for the last few years.  That’s one aspect of TN I won’t miss.

Another is these damn cicadas!  The shrieking buzz gets louder each day, and the creepy corpses pile up underfoot!  The Horror.  What was nature thinking?!

Here’s what’s happening in the garden, besides mowing and cicada heaps:

Yesterday my son dropped by one final time on his way back to St. L., where he’ll have the kids for the summer, so no more visits here for a while.

The funny thing is, now that I’ve actually seen and hugged him in person for the first time post-vaccine, it seems harder to let him go now.  During quarantine, I almost got used to (or resigned to) being apart for literally whole years at a time, in addition to being separated by hundreds of miles.  Now that I’ve had the relief of being reunited, only to have to let him go for who knows how long, it seems sadder, more isolating.  But happier and more hopeful too, having had the chance to spend a few hours together catching up.  I guess it’s a paradox.

Whenever next time can happen, we’ll either be on our way back to Ohio, or living there.  At least we’ll all be somewhere in the midwest!

Here are some pleasant memories to sustain me until we meet again, including walks in the “prairie”, gaping at the cicada horror (covering the ground like thick mulch), and Misu exhausted after her fun adventures with Avdi.  The orange poppies are in his honor.

Words don’t even…I’ll let the photos speak for themselves.  It was a relief and pleasure to be able to hug my son and spend hours together.  Misu was thrilled to see “her boy” again.  Avdi also helped us move the obligatory giant file cabinet to the shed, and we gave him some furniture and books.  It was a very good day.  I hope we’ll be able to visit him in St. Louis soon.

My garden will have to get along without me for a while longer, ’til I kick this discomfort.  The rabbits are pruning it and the cicadas are mulching it, without my help.

Misu seems to be feeling under the weather, too.  She’ll be happy to see “her boy” tomorrow, as will I.  Here she is relaxing on her windowsill.  It doesn’t get much more chill than this.

In case anyone missed me (I know right?) I’ve been physically out of commission with back/etc. pain, but I’m almost back, pun intended.  I haven’t been able to do anything outside, hence no photos until now.  Everything out there is covered in cicada carcasses, like a creepy mulch.  Even for this wildlife fan, this is a little much.

I did eventually get some more filing done, so that’s progress.  The recycle/shred mountain is mounting up.  It almost (not quite) reminds me of my parents’ filing nightmare, which is disturbing.  That’s how analog and old school I’ve been up ’til now.  I would never want to pass this job on to anyone.  Fortunately much of my current stuff is digital now.

Here are some photos to make up for lost time.  Hopefully minus cicada corpses.  All that’s missing is my son, who plans to visit this weekend!  It’s been a long time.  So much to catch up on.

I finished planting the veg annex with tomato and pepper plants.  I just need to find space in the main veg bed for the few eggplants that made it.  Then hope the !@#$ rabbits don’t eat it all.

The other morning I looked out and saw Skunkbunny and all his wild cousins hiphopping around like they own the place.  They just lounge around and look at me.

I’m also apparently the local feral cat lady–they all know where the food is!  Only they don’t seem to eat large rabbits, or even deter them.  What good are they?

The price I pay for attracting wildlife!  I just hope somebody will eat all these piles of cicada corpses.  They’re basically harmless, but it’s like a mass grave out there.  At least they contribute lots of nitrogen to the soil!

Here are some of the latest colorful bloomers, representing natives, tropicals, flowering shrubs and trees, perennials, and whatever else came back.  Since we’re leaving the state this year, I’m no longer on my mission to replace everything with natives, but I can still enjoy what’s here.  I’d say I accomplished a lot, considering the “before” picture.  I turned a boring barren lot into a variety of gardens surrounded by native trees, and a semi-native meadow of wildflowers, grasses, and trees, where wildlife could find food, water, and shelter.  What happens after us is not my problem, but I hope the new owners will appreciate the potential.