Summer,The Beautiful Serenity of the Garden and People Dieing in War Zones

I wonder around my garden, looking at such immaculate beauty. How is my life full of such joy and others suffer so terribly just because of an accident of birth. I was born in the UK and moved to Southern Ontario; someone else is born in Lebanon and has to flee violence caused by years of hate and over inflated egos battling each other. I sit here writing my blog with a full bodied glass of red wine, the lady in the photo from today’s newspaper is fleeing carnage and destruction with her bed pillows. South Africa’s troubles and Northern Ireland’s troubles are slowly healing because it was agreed that peace and forgiveness was more practical than hate and death.

Enough said, my heart goes out to all the ordinary people in Lebanon, Gaza, Israel, Iraq and all the war zones.

Gardening is such a wonderful thing, we just sow some seeds, plant some plants and wow, step back, nature creates a beauty that cannot be imagined. Poppies, Dahlias, Marigold, Zinna, Cone Flower, Ligularia, Snap Dragons, Night Scented Stock, Lillies, Roses, Campanula. There is an explosion of colour and fecundity all around me. Just walking around my small garden I can see so many flowers, some I nurtured from seed and some self sowed themselves.

After working hard in the spring planting the seedlings, weeding and digging, now the garden is too full to let weeds through. All I have to do is the occasional weeding, moving plants that are smothered by their neighbours and dead heading the spent flowers.

The butterflies and humming birds enjoy the flower nectar, a huge variety of insects fly and crawl around the garden balancing each other out. The snakes and frogs eat their share and the racoons watch indignantly waiting for me to go indoors if I have the cheek to garden too late into the night.

The maples that shade the sun from the west and keep our back garden cool are really a blessing this summer, as the temperatures soar, the back garden remains shaded and cool-ish. Dappled light comes through in the afternoon, dancing across the garden and reminding me that the sun is there. Sometimes the bliss of it all reaches a crescendo, you feel so in the moment and an intimacy with beauty some how fills you.

The Pinot Noir has a great bouquet and tastes find but still part of me cries at the inequity of this world.