For example, spraying a hard stream of water on the Nasturtiums and their leaves to get rid of the aphids that had infested them. When I first started seeing the leaves turning yellow and the flowers withering, I thought it was the heat and lack of water. After all, it wasn't all the leaves or flowers that were thus affected. Then Don espied lots of little black dots on the leaves. I had seen them too in passing but chalked them up to dirt from when I had watered them with the hose. After a couple of days it became obvious that we had an infestation on our hands.
Several friends and good ole Google provided the answer as to how to treat the detestable aphids. A hard spray of water was the first avenue of defense and if that didn't work, washing the leaves and stems with soapy water. I must have killed legions of aphids in about 10 minutes with my hard water spray treatment this morning. The poor Nasturtiums look pretty raggedy and traumatised just now. So in the interest of sparing the Nasturtiums further ignominy, today's photo is not of them but of the new pathway lights and the area between each one planted now with little heather plants (each is about 3 or 4 inches around) and mulched. I know. You can't see much. On a brighter day, after they have settled in, I'll introduce you properly to the heathers.
In the left foreground you see a bit of the summer-flowering Clematis which is cheerfully producing a riot of blooms and twining itself around the garden arch as well as its companion Clematis if I don't intervene now and then. It somehow never occurred to me how much gardening can be akin to a contact sport! You also can see the patchy bit of lawn that is left over from the mound of builder's sand which lay there for nearly 7 months. That still must be dealt with.
Don came home from golf yesterday saying he had played his best game ever. I think his score was something like 41. He's been learning a lot from reading the bible. Well, here I'm being cute: I refer to the two golfing books he bought himself earlier this month: Dave Pelz's Short Game Bible and Dave Pelz's Putting Bible. At first he thought the author was going into ridiculous theoretical detail about how grass grows, but he stuck with the reading and learned much that he's been able to put into practice. Most importantly, he has a new way of looking at the game. And he's decided to play more with drivers and the sand wedge instead of relying so heavily on certain irons. (I am getting into deep water here, considering that I haven't much of a clue what I'm talking about and he's not here to ask. I'm trying to remember what he said to me yesterday at lunch. I think I got it right.)
He's playing a medal with the Comrie Seniors this morning and hopeful of being able to sustain the edge he had yesterday. I think he is actually entering a new golfing "growth phase."
The two golfing books I referred to earlier are both hardbacks and quite large, far too heavy or cumbersome to read in bed. So in bed he's reading Andrew Greig's Preferred Lies: A Journey to the Heart of Scottish Golf which Haig and Trish gave him for his birthday in May. Andrew Greig (pronounced Greg) is a contemporary Scots poet, novelist, and nonfiction writer we have enjoyed reading for almost 20 years now. Preferred Lies is his latest nonfiction book. Don read me this quote last night, which I think anyone can appreciate, whether they play golf or not:
How quickly one's moods shift on a golf course, bouyancy followed by irritation at the shortcomings of course and self. As I walk after the ball, keeping my eye on where I think it ended up among the wool and gull feathers, I can watch my mind churning away.
In golf, with its many pauses, its often lengthy walks between one shot and the next, there's time to watch thoughts and emotions shift, merge and succeed each other with all the inveitability and impersonality of thin clouds across this boundless sky. It's a meditation of sorts. Instead of watching my breath, mindfulness of breathing, this is mindfulness of golfing.
Figuring out what to do with this awareness--of how desire creates anxiety creates tension that leads to poor shot which makes for irritation, which is silly because it's only a golf ball for God's sake and the day is beautiful--well that's Scottish Presbyterian Buddhist stuff and it's going to take a lifetime to work it out.
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