banana slug

Season’s End

Now newts arise from dry grassland tunnels wetted by fresh winter rain,

ecstatic, star-guided, stretching towards far away ponds.

Now dust washes from every needle and leaf.

Wind gusts. Torrents. Then blue sky.

Nights dominate – deep rest, many dreams.

Now owl hoots with raindrop percussion –

raindrops, millions, each with its own tone.

Sharp snares – bouncing splashes explode from waxy madrone leaves.

Muffled droplets sink silently through softened turf.

The Molino Community Orchard, so loved…now prepared for a resting winter

Crop fields tilled and rested.

Brown, crumbly, bared soil,

winter seeds, absorbing.

2 Dog Farm’s dryfarmed butternut squash, culls, got tilled in this week

Now the rumbling, crashing, hissing roar,

musical hum of waves.

Reverberating waves echoing notes like distant Tuvan throat singing.

Now the wind howls.

Centipedes, pill bugs, beetles,

burrow deeper into the wetting duff.

Leaves shake loose, settle, sheltering myriad ground critters.

White, yellow, brown…fine fungal roots spawn through the complex of soil and leaflitter salad,

buttons, parasols push and unfold.

Banana slugs slither trailing tracks, silver mucous crossing leaves, clearing algae off dank windows, slime traversing the furry, rough bark plates of redwoods.

Sun rises after storm.

Vast glittering sparkles shine and twinkle across the landscape.

Celebration of rain,

so begins a new season of growth.

So begins the long dark wet muddy winter.

The last of Molino Creek Farm’s dryfarmed tomatoes have been tilled in.