I am a spring/summer person. I get very excited by the coming of spring, the first crocuses, the first daffodils. I'm over the moon when my forsythia's bloom. The first year I started gardening, in the warmth of a summer afternoon, I was leafing through a spring flowering bulb catalog. What a great idea, I'll order a couple of hundred bulbs and plant them when fall arrives. Being a city girl, I never dreamed in a million years that this meant I was going to be digging a couple of hundred holes and putting dead looking things in them on a blustery and overcast fall day. 
This was the year I learned that gardeners are also optimists. To go out on a cold, windy day with something that looks like an onion and expect it to be a gorgeous flower come spring is nothing short of expecting miracles. But, miracles indeed they are. Every spring when the bulbs are blooming I think, this autumn, I'll plant more. Every year by the time September gets here, after raking leaves, weeding the thistle and getting rid of the summer flower debris, the very last thing I want to do is dig more holes.
My garden, while I think there's a wild beauty about it in summer, is not very inspiring in the fall. And lately, I've been outside a lot. My puppy, JJ is not getting the hang of this going potty outside business. In the summer months, he was somewhat incredulous that I expected him to walk in the wet grass in the morning. Go outside in the dark, surely you jest, his accusing eyes would say. My husband Jack put in an electric fence for me so that I could just open the door and let my little darling out. He stands at the open door, looks outside, looks back at me and runs away. What are you kidding me, he seems to say. It's cold out there, and I want to be with you! So, with nothing else to do for it but to accompany him outside, every single time he needs to go, I wander around my garden, urging him on, and looking around for a shred of beauty.
Having JJ has been very rewarding to me. Every time I come home, he throws me a parade of love and unstinting affection. But the potty business is getting old, I have a cold and it is raw outside. So there we were today, I am urging him to go, and JJ is trying to be cute and sneak back up on the deck. We both know that as soon as he is out of my sight, if I can't get him to go outside, he'll go in my laundry room, so he keeps trying to slip past me and I keep blocking the way.
Gardening teaches many lessons and I learn another one today. There is beauty in everything. While begging JJ to hurry up, and complaining about the cold, I am immune to it. But when I grab my camera, and decide to make the best of it, I find it. The remains of Max's marigolds, planted every year from the seeds that started out as a present on Mother's day from him when he was 6 years old, remind me that while he may be growing up fast, he is still my little boy.
I may have to rethink the beauty of my wild garden in the fall. Hope springs eternal in a garden and who knows, there may be hope yet for JJ and the potty training. JJ brings so much to our home and putting the time in with him really isn't too much to ask in return.
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