It is time to face up to the fact that winter is just around the corner and I can’t stall off any longer putting all my gardens and flowers to bed for the winter. Around here that means restoring the mulch around the gardens and flower beds. In one instance I have to rake back the hay that the chickens have managed to scratch downhill under the bushes. I have to rake it out and put it back.
Our garden was good to us this year and we had a beautiful harvest. Cupboard full. Root cellar ready and there are piles of pine needles and assorted leaves brought down by my helpers this summer from the stage area. The pines were very generous this year. I am sure you have already noticed. There was also a super crop of acorns, which are everywhere. It can be painful when you are barefooted. Robin goes barefoot most of the time. I like to keep my feet warm and safe.
We have spent hours going blind trimming our medical buds. Thank you, Lord, for my beautiful soil. It grows large and tasty everything. Speaking of buds, ours are medically prescribed and registered and therefore legal. But I do want to express my deep concern over the new proposed (34 pages) legalization of marijuana law being proposed.
I can see clearly that this will be accompanied by a vast new bureaucracy to keep track of who is growing what. They will want to issue licenses that will cost dearly (to pay for the plant counters).
I am not clear at all that Maine citizens who want to grow their own weed are going to pay for the privilege of doing what they have been doing “out back” for years and years. Any fool can throw pot seeds over his shoulder and stomp them in and grow amazing weed. Why should we have to pay for the privilege? We tax alcohol sold in stores, but Mainers are allowed to brew their own beer back of the stove. No one cares and no one checks. You can buy everything you need to make beer at Rising Tide Market in Damariscotta. All quite proper and respectable.
As for winding down, I wish I had grown more squash this year and more kinds of root crops. We have sworn off eating potatoes and other deadly nightshades likes tomatoes … also I was slack in the cabbage department. Next year fewer weeds and more vegetables!
(Doug Wright lives over Head Tide Hill in Whitefield. He welcomes feedback at douglas.wright22@yahoo.com.)
