Lopping My Yard Into Perfection

August 27, 2026 — Pat Bertram

It rained last night, a lovely surprise. Even better, it rained enough that it gave me an extra day off from watering. It also rained enough that the ground is too wet for me to be clomping around on that sodden clay soil to dig up weeds. (I’ve been pretty much keeping up with weeds that I can reach from my grassy areas, but the deep garden areas are more difficult to access, especially when the ground is muddy and slippery.)

So, no gardening work today! It’s just as well — I’ve been in a lopping mood lately, and it’s probably not fair to take it out on my garden even more than I have. (Luckily, the bush I lopped off almost to the ground a couple of weeks ago is starting to green up. Whew!)

My raised garden started out in late spring as a freshly planted petunia patch, to match the petunia container gardens dispersed throughout my yard. Then the self-seeded moss rose started growing, which made a nice counterpoint to the petunias. Then the self-seeded marigolds got going. I wasn’t sure what to do about any of it. It ruined my matching-petunia-gardens theme, but I thought those other plants deserved a chance, so I just let it all go, though as more marigolds took hold, I thinned them and moved the seedlings to other places in my yard. Unfortunately, those pretty frilly marigold seedlings that were left in the raised garden ended up being shrubbery. No exaggeration. Some of those plants were almost two-feet tall and almost that big around. That most were only twelve to eighteen inches didn’t make them any less of a shrub. (To give you an idea of the size of the plants, all the marigolds in the accompanying photo are from a section of a single plant.)

Anyway, those “shrubs” kept growing and growing until just about all I could see of my raised garden were marigolds. They’re not my favorite flower, though judiciously spread through my gardens to fill in blank spots, they help brighten my fall yard. But a whole sea of marigolds? Too much of a sort-of-good thing.

Irritated by the marigold takeover, but not totally willing to yank out all the plants (I’m going to have company in three weeks, and they are looking forward to seeing my “park,” so I want it to look as good as possible), I did the next best thing. At least I hope it is. At any rate, it was the only solution I could think of — I chopped the heads off those plants. Now all the plants in the raised garden are the same height. With any luck, the puny petunias and stringy moss rose will be able to make a comeback now that they aren’t being buried beneath the huge crowns of the marigold shrubs.

If they marigolds die, I’ll pull them up, which is what I would have done if I weren’t so determined that my yard look its best. It will be interesting to see what happens. Perhaps they might even grow a few new flowers.

Meantime, the whole yard is heaving a sigh of relief. Not only are they drinking up the moisture and basking in the relative of cool of this after-rain day, they are thrilled that I’m not out there with my pruning shears, trying to lop my yard into perfection.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

Posted in gardening, home, life. Tags: , , , , , . Leave a Comment »

No Shows

August 19, 2026 — Pat Bertram

I had two or three days in a row where I didn’t have to do any outside work because of rain. I’d scheduled Monday as the day to start up again, but someone was supposed to come clean my gutters, and I didn’t want him to have to deal with wet ground while he was on a ladder or a scaffold, so I crossed my fingers and hoped the yard would be okay another day without care.

And yes, it was fine yesterday morning when I went out to do the chores I should have done on Monday. The respite must have been good for me because I was able to do a lot of cleanup work, like trimming bushes and pulling up a few weeds.

It seems as if we’re back to high heat and no rain, so there won’t be many more respite days for a while. But that’s okay. August is nearing the end, and though September around here usually remains hot, there’s no doubt cooler days are coming. If nothing else, the sun time is less and will continue to grow less for the next four months, so that leaves less time for plants to get heat stroke.

So, I’m okay and my yard is okay, but my gutters aren’t. What’s with people? Two years ago, my contractor promised he’d stop by to clean the gutters, but he never did. Last year, I hired another fellow who’d been doing occasional work for me to clean the gutters, but he never showed up to do the work. Last week, when I was out watering, a guy who was working next door came over to me and introduced himself. He said he was certified for all sorts of work, so if I needed anything, he’d be glad to do it. I asked about the gutters, and explained about the others who had never showed up. He said, “Sure no problem. I can do that. Is tomorrow first thing in the morning okay?” Of course I said yes.

The next morning came and went with no sign of him, though later he did stop by to explain that he’d been hired to do some emergency cleanup after the big storm we had, but that he would be here Monday. For sure.

But he was a no show on Monday. I thought maybe he’d come when I was outside working yesterday, but that was another day of no showing.

I imagine someday he’ll show up, but then, I imagine a lot of things. Luckily, with as little rain as we get, the gutter problem shouldn’t really matter, though I don’t like seeing twigs and such sticking out from those gutters. Too bad there isn’t a long-handled gutter cleaner so I could do the work myself without having to get up on a ladder. Although I’d sworn off ladder climbing, I did tack up a shingle that blew off my gazebo because the guy who promised to fix it never came. But that was a short ladder (a step stool, actually) so it wasn’t much of a problem. But cleaning gutters? Not for me. I’ll just wait until . . .

Well, I’ll just wait until he shows up, and if he doesn’t, next year I’ll hire someone else who probably won’t show up, either.

I did find one surprise in my yard today — a couple of daylilies! I thought they were finished for the year, but apparently not.

At least something knows how to show up!

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

Posted in gardening, home, house, life. Tags: , , , , , . 8 Comments »

Feeling Lazy

August 16, 2026 — Pat Bertram

It rained a couple of nights in a row, with just a faint misting the third night (last night), which is nice for me, since I got a break from working, nice for the yard since it managed to recuperate from the long heat wave we had, and nice for the flowers.

Although there hasn’t been much color in the yard lately, the rain managed to bring some flowers to life. I generally don’t like sunflowers — well, I like the flowers, I just don’t like huge flowers that tower over and intimidate me. Nor do I like having to deal with the leftover trunk-thick stalks. But the sunflowers were in a package of wildflower seeds my sister had gifted me, and since she’s coming next month, I thought I should make an effort to grow those seeds.

What I ended up with were some cosmos and a bunch of sunflowers. I’d planted them in an area that usually lies fallow in the summer, though this year, I’d also I planted a few food plants and surrounded them with marigolds and lilliput zinnias I’d thinned out of other gardens, again, because of my sister’s visit. (I wanted the place to look as good as possible.) It turned out to be a jungle, but a fun one, especially since buried in all the foliage is a pumpkin the size of a basketball.

Of course, the rain made other things grow, such as the grass, but with heavy due and a ground still moist from the rain, I need to wait a bit to mow. And of course — weeds. Always weeds. I suppose I could go out, brave the mosquitoes, and do some work, but these days off have left me feeling lazy. Oh, well. There’s always tomorrow.

And as I have discovered, it’s often better not to do today what you can put off until tomorrow.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

Posted in gardening, home, life, photography. Tags: , , , , . 4 Comments »

Rain. Yay!

August 14, 2026 — Pat Bertram

It rained last night. Yay! I can imagine that those of you who are dealing with too much rain aren’t as enthusiastic as I am, but then, if it rained here, maybe it didn’t rain there.

We need the rain, which is something to “yay” about, but it also gives me a respite from outside work. The work hasn’t bothered me as much this year as in the past, partly because I’ve been able to keep grass and plants alive through the hottest spells, which I haven’t always been able to do, and partly because the work doesn’t feel as onerous as it did in previous years. I’m not sure why that is. Maybe I’m stronger, or maybe my knees are. Or maybe how I feel doesn’t matter as much — after all, my strength will probably ebb as I rack up the years, so how I feel on a given day is something I’m learning to accept.

But still, having a day of rest is good. Also, when it rains, the alley that my garage opens out into is a quagmire after any rain, so I can’t leave to do errands. Of course, if there was an emergency need, I could always walk to a store, but luckily, I don’t need anything.

So, a completely open day.

Normally, I’d spend such a day reading, but at the beginning of this year, I wandered through the library shelves as I have done more than a thousand times since I’ve been here, and anything I saw that might be interesting, I’d read at least twice. Most were popular books that barely held my interest, many I read the first and last chapter, and even that was too much. I’d been getting by with reading new books and books from interlibrary loan, but the new library director was buying junky books (at least they seemed so to me), and interlibrary loan doesn’t do any good unless you know what you want to read, and I’ve already read everything I know I want to read. The purpose of going to the library was to find books I didn’t know I wanted to read, and since I couldn’t find any that day, I left the library without checking out any books.

And I never went back.

I bought books for a while, but that wasn’t satisfactory since even the recommended books didn’t hold my interest. (After reading more that 20,000 books, not much does hold my interest, and now, with so much being written or enhanced by AI, I have even less inclination to read.) So I’m left with what is on my own shelves. A paltry selection of books to be sure — The Wheel of Time books, the Kingkiller Chronicles, Noel Barber’s books, Pat Bertram’s books (of course), and a few non-fiction books (mostly reference).

These books are all perfect for now. I have a lifelong habit of reading while I eat — in fact, if I had no books, I might not eat at all — so reading a single chapter of a book I know well is perfect for that. And another chapter to put me to sleep at night.

So, what to do when there’s nothing I have to do?

I could clean house, I suppose, but that’s not much of a day of rest. But don’t worry. I’ll figure something out. Like doing an online game or working offline pencil puzzles or reading all sorts of articles online. (Apparently, I switched from reading offline novels to online news articles to satisfy my reading itch, but the damage to my peace of mind is making me rethink that tendency.)

Whatever I do, I’m sure, the day will be restful one, all due to last night’s rain. Yay!

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

Posted in being me, books, gardening, life. Tags: , , , , , . 2 Comments »

Reflection of My Life

August 13, 2026 — Pat Bertram

Maria Rodale, whoever that is, wrote: Gardens are microcosms of our approach to living.

[I had to look her up since the only Rodale name I knew was Rodale Press that published books on health and gardening and other such topics, and it turns out she is one of those Rodales.]

If she’s right about gardens being microcosm of our approach to living, I wonder what my garden says about me, and if it truly is a reflection of my life. I tend to think it is. Since I am always balanced now (or rather, I try to be), not swinging too far from center emotionally, politically, or any other “ally,” it stands to reason that I would all unknowingly approach my garden the same way. My lawn is carefully tended and groomed, mowed and (sometimes) weeded though not, perhaps, as often as they should be. Some of my garden spots are also carefully tended, yet others are pretty much left to do what they want. For example, I planted petunias in my raised garden, and first they were overtaken by self-planted moss rose (portulaca) and then both the moss roses and petunias were overtaken by marigolds. I’m too soft-hearted to rip out those marigolds, and anyway, who am I to say what gets to live and die? (Though admittedly, I do try to roust a lot of the weeds that grow in my space.) And so, poor things, they are left to duke it out on their own.

It’s not a bad way to garden in a place that’s inhospitable to many plants because the things that grow well here tend to do very well, which is why I have so many purple magnus echinacea and red ice plant — they spread. On the other hand, the New England aster I was so proud of at the beginning, don’t do well at all anymore. They don’t like the heat, they don’t like the soil, and they especially don’t like the pH of this soil. (Like most soil in Colorado, it’s highly alkaline, a gift the primordial ocean left behind when it receded from the state.) Every year I cut those poor asters back since that’s supposed to help keep the plants from going brown; every year I think of maybe potting them or doing something else to make them thrive, and every year I just let them be.

My garden is also a reflection of my need to learn as well as my rebellious streak, where I don’t necessarily want to do what the experts suggest, so mainly I learn by trial and error. As I have always done. (Which is probably why I have an enormous and eclectic store of knowledge in my head while also being naïve about many things others seem to know instinctively.)

Most people, at a casual glance, would not be able to connect any of that garden approach with my mostly laissez faire attitude toward life (lately, that attitude is being drowned out by my sadness at the way communism is creeping into the country, but I still mostly try to go along to get along). For anyone who’s paying attention, my yard does say one thing: an old woman lives here. When Jeff and I would see a nicely kept up yard in any of the areas we lived, we always knew it was taken care of by a retiree because no one else seems to have the time or inclination.

And that, too, says something about me — unabashedly accepting my age.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

Posted in being me, dealing with old age, gardening, home, life. Tags: , , , , , , . 2 Comments »

End of the Heat Wave

August 12, 2026 — Pat Bertram

Today is the last day of a heat wave, and I am celebrating by . . . well, by talking about it. That’s not much of a celebration, but then, the end of the heatwave isn’t much to celebrate because out here on the plains, we still have another month or two of scorching weather. And anyway, the end of this particular extreme weather week might bring the temperatures down by fifteen degrees, but it’s still hot — low 90s, though it might dip down into the high 80s. There’s also a chance of rain in a few days, but I’m not counting on it. The weather folks seem to do okay on forecasting temperatures in this area, but they are so often wrong about precipitation.

Still, it would be nice to get some rain — we certainly need it. And I need a day off from working outside. Of course, if we do get rain, that day off will be followed by a massive influx of weeds, but oh, well. It all evens out in the end, I guess.

Surprisingly for this time of year, my yard is still mostly green, though there is a weird patch of brown grass that I can only imagine came from some animal’s excretions — a skunk maybe. They’ve been active around here, at least according to the smell. Luckily, they are a nocturnal creature, so I don’t encounter them, which I would not like at all.

There are a few garden spots of flowers, which is nice. Oddly, a couple of the chrysanthemums are starting to bloom. I thought lower temperatures were their instigation, but apparently not. Maybe it’s the lessening of the light that makes them bloom. Or it could be that since they started growing earlier this year, it’s simply time. Either way, I’m looking forward to seeing a bit more color in my yard. Right now, most of the color is in the front where I have two semi-circular flower beds filled with mini zinnias. I thought they’d be a sure winner for those areas since they love the sun, but apparently they don’t like as much heat as they’ve been getting because I’ve had a rough time keeping them going. But today, they are pretty, so there’s that.

Well, I’ve stalled long enough. It’s time for me to brave the heat and go out to water the zinnias and anything else that’s struggling.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

Posted in being me, gardening, home, life. Tags: , , , , . 6 Comments »

Pat Van Winkle

August 11, 2026 — Pat Bertram

Even though we’re in the middle of a heat wave, the past few days I’ve gone outside in relative cool of the early morning to do some much-needed work — trimming overgrown plants, weeding, deadheading, and whatever else I happen to notice when I’m out there. It’s exhausting work, not just the activity but because “relative cool” in no way means “cool.” There is still a lot of weeding to do, but luckily, much of it is not in my view, so I can pretend the weeds aren’t there until I again get the inclination to work that hard.

Yesterday, after I finished working and recuperated a bit, I had to run errands and pick up a couple of food items. I stopped at the nearby dollar store, walked inside, and stopped cold. I stared around at all the Halloween items, totally confused. “What month is this?” I asked a nearby clerk. She laughed, knowing exactly what I meant, and replied, “It’s August.”

Whew! For a minute there, I thought something had happened when I’ve been all caught up in working, like perhaps a month or two passing without my realizing it. I joked and told her that the early seasonal products were not fair for us older folk living alone because we have a hard enough time keeping track of the days.

Although considerably younger, she admitted she’d felt the same way when they got the shipment of Halloween items, and even worse, they’d already received their Thanksgiving shipment.

I hope the moment of befuddlement, not knowing what month it was, isn’t a prognostication of my future. I certainly don’t like the feeling of utter befuddlement. It’s bad enough that the world is passing me by —

I had to stop there and think. Is the world passing me by, and if it is, is it a bad thing? And if it is a bad thing, do I care?

Actually, no. I don’t care, as long as I don’t get confused. For me, confusion is too disorienting, and leaves me . . . confused.

At least there’s no confusion in my mind now. It’s still August. We’re still in a heatwave, though it’s expected to cool down in a couple of days, and I’m still me, not any sort of out-of-time “Van Winkle.”

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

Posted in being me, dealing with old age, gardening, life. Tags: , , , , . 2 Comments »

Chugging Along

August 7, 2026 — Pat Bertram

If I suddenly disappear, don’t worry. I’m probably fine, just taking a break from blogging. What’s going on in the world is just so discouraging that I get tired of writing about what I am trying to think through. Actually, I’m tired of trying to think things through, too, tired of trying to find a way to make everything — anything — make sense. (Though how does one make sense of what in many cases is utterly senseless?) In fact, I was seriously considering this to be my last post for a while, but a friend left me a message “Do not give up!” And that made a big difference. So thank you.

Not that I really want to talk about “the issues,” it’s that they are on my mind. Normally, I can push those thoughts away with talk of my garden, but right now, there’s not even much to say about my yard, not many pictures to show. At this time of year, the weeds sprout ten times faster than I can pull them up. (I am prone at times to exaggeration for the sake of making a point, but the speed at which the weeds are sprouting is the literal truth. Spurge, the worst offender, sure is a scourge! It’s everywhere.) Also, the summer flowers are mostly gone and the fall blooms still weeks away. Well, except for the marigolds. This year, they are like weeds, having planted themselves in copious numbers, even crowding out plants I paid for. What I discovered is that whatever marigolds are supposed to do to keep bugs away, they don’t. In fact, there are more bugs in my self-planted marigold beds than there are in the rest of the yard.

Although I don’t really like marigolds, except for their ability to brighten dead spots in fall, the French marigold is different. The odor isn’t as strong, the petals aren’t as compact, and the color is brighter. As with the traditional marigolds, these also self-seeded. In fact, I have more of them this year than were planted last year. (I didn’t plant them specifically — they came in an assortment of orange wildflowers.)

I do have a single pumpkin growing. I used to see a lot of thumb-size babies, but they all disappeared. I don’t even know how that happened. Maybe the momma pumpkin absorbed them. It’s a good thing I only need one pumpkin! Even though the tomato plant is as big as a bush, it still hasn’t produced a single blossom, and though the cantaloupe is producing flowers, it’s not producing fruit.

Yep. A discouraging time all around. Though that’s nothing new. According to blogs I posted at this time in previous years, that discouragement seems to a sign of the times. I can’t even blame my malaise on the heat — we had a couple of days hinting of fall before the 100+ temperatures returned.

I’ll chalk up my discouragement to the midsummer blahs, and keep chugging along, even if I do give in to my inclination to stop blogging every day.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

Posted in being me, blogging, gardening, life. Tags: , , , , , . 10 Comments »

Useful Folk

August 3, 2026 — Pat Bertram

I saw a video clip the other day that made me think, which I’m sure was not the fellow’s intention since he seems to hate old people and think they should all be done away with. Still, this fellow, with more hardware poked into his face than I have in my toolbox, said that some old guy came up to him, gave him twenty dollars, and suggested he remove the hardware. Rude? Probably? Uncalled for? Well, perhaps. But the question is, why would someone make himself into such a spectacle if he didn’t want to be noticed? Anyway, he ranted on and on about how useless “the boomers” are, without any real knowledge of what the boomer generation is. He said they just sat around and did nothing, which some older folks do, especially those older than the boomers. For the most part, the boomers I know are still working, taking care of grandchildren, volunteering, writing, gardening . . . any number of activities.

It seemed to me that he was not the sort of person to get involved with older folks who are strangers, such as those he’d meet if he were volunteering at a retirement home, so the only way he would know if “the boomers” did nothing but sit around all day was if he knew someone personally, someone perhaps who wouldn’t give him money when he asked. Which made his rant more personal than a sweeping generality, especially since he said he needed gas and the twenty dollars the old boomer gave him was necessary. Which completely negates his rant, because obviously, that old boomer had a particular use and wasn’t worthless to the ranter after all.

Apparently, a lot of the younger generations share his viewpoint about “the boomers” being useless and that they should all be put out of their misery (the misery the young people are feeling, that is, not the misery the old folks probably aren’t feeling). Some people see this attitude as the first step toward generational warfare, which is entirely possible. (Supposedly one of the reasons they hate older folks is they are supporting those “useless” people with their social security taxes, but that there are too few of them to support all of the old people and have money left for themselves. It would seem, then, as if the end — based solely on numbers — would favor the oldsters.) Even some of the self-proclaimed “elder millennial” commentators I used to listen to (emphasis on “used to”) turn out to have that same anti-boomer prejudice, which is funny because they hate being classified as part of the black monolith that’s supposed to be voting democratic, but they see “boomers” as just another faceless monolith.

All of that is preamble to what the hardware guy made me think: Who, actually, deserves to live? Who among us is so worthy of life that everyone else should be eliminated to make room for them? What makes a person worthy of living? What makes one person more useful than another? Is anyone useful, really?

Is a baby contributing to society? Is a kid going to school? What about a person who doesn’t work but manages to get enough handouts to live a life of leisure while pleading poverty? What about the rich folks who are funding the subversive movements in this country? What about the fraudsters? What about the teachers who propagandize rather than teach kids to think? What about the university bigwigs who take money from enemies of the United States to further propagandize the students? What about the scientists who develop drugs and other substances to keep people on a medical treadmill? What about the “experts” who make up the news — or slant it — rather than simply reporting it? What about the editors who decide what we are too stupid to understand? What about the commentators who spew innuendo with straight faces?

If we were to do away with all the worthless folk, the only ones left would be you and me, and I sometimes wonder about you.

[Sorry, I couldn’t resist. That’s something my dad would say to me when I was young: “All the world’s crazy but you and me, and I sometimes wonder about you.” He sure did think that was funny!]

Despite that last facetious remark, there is a tinge of truth to it. In my case, I might not still be working at a paying job, but I am working in my garden, which gives a lot of people pleasure —my neighbors, people walking by, people driving past on purpose to see what I am doing. When I do see people, I always have a smile or a kind word or a hug to give away. I might not be contributing much to the economy, but I leave behind barely perceptible footprints: I live on a miniscule income, drive as little as possible, don’t waste food or much of anything. I just try to live a quiet life of peace, which adds to the entire mantle of peace that perhaps protects us.

Who’s to say that’s not as important as . . . well, as anything that’s important, if there is anything that’s important.

So, to turn the tables on the ranter, perhaps by giving me something to think about, he actually turned out to be one of the useful folk.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

Posted in being me, culture, dealing with old age, gardening, life, relationships. Tags: , , , . Leave a Comment »

Dreams I Never Dreamed

July 28, 2026 — Pat Bertram
Daily writing prompt
What’s your biggest dream?
View all responses

I don’t have any dreams, biggest or otherwise. Well, I do have the night kind, but I don’t have many of those either, at least not that I remember. Should we have dreams? I don’t know. I tried looking up dreams on Google, but no matter what my search terms, I always ended up with a list of sites pertaining to nighttime dreams. I even asked if we needed a dream, and what I got was a lecture on the importance of REM sleep.

So, I guess I’m on my own for a definition of this topic.

Do we need to have a dream? It seems to be the consensus (except for Google) that yes, we do. As Harper’s Bizarre once sang, “You gotta have a dream. If you don’t have a dream, how you gonna have a dream come true?

As far as I can recall, though, I never really had a dream, something I was passionate about that I wished would happen or that I could work toward happening. When I was young, I wanted to be an author, even quit a job to pursue the craft, and it came as a shock when I discovered I had no talent. Years later, long after any vestige of that ambition had disappeared, I learned how to write, even had some books published but never became a “real” author, one who makes a living by writing. Perhaps the closest I came to having a dream was after Jeff died when I considered walking the Pacific Crest Trail, or walking cross country, or doing some other epic walk. I called it an impossible dream in my many blog posts about pursuing that dream, and as it turned out, it was impossible, but still, it was something that consumed my attention for many years. I researched, tried to get in shape enough to carry a heavy pack, did so many things to try to achieve that “dream,” though was it a dream? I don’t know. Looking back, it seems less a dream and more of a mental escape or a way of coping with a life of uncertainty.

And my life was uncertain. After Jeff died, I moved a thousand miles from our home to go take care of my aged father, and then after he died . . . well, let’s just say I was untethered.

Still, back then, I did think a lot about trying to find a “dream,” a way of getting through the rest of my life as fully engaged as possible. I did a lot of things in pursuit of a dream, though in fact, I’d never even dreamed any of those dreams. Dancing on stage, for example. I’m not the lightest of folks, not much of one for music or rhythm or bendability or any of a dozen other things one thinks about when you think of a dancer. And yet I did learn to dance, even did several performances on stage before a live audience. Apparently, despite the Harper’s Bizarre song, you can have a dream come true even if you never had the dream.

It’s the same with my house. Until I decided to spend my last bit of savings on a house, I’d certainly never even entertained the idea of owning a piece of property. Once I had the idea, I dreamed the house into existence, and now I seem to be living a dream, one that I never really dreamed.

And my garden. It’s a dream of a garden, that’s for sure, but for sure one that I’d never dreamed. In fact, I distinctly remember thinking (and telling people) that I didn’t want a garden or any landscaping. I wanted a yard that would take care of itself, and yet here I am, with an aftermath of a dream I never had.

Although I still don’t have dreams, I continue to open to whatever comes my way. And who knows, one day I might find myself in another situation where a dream I never dreamed actually came true.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

Posted in being me, gardening, house, life. Tags: , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment »
« Older posts