I spent this past week at our home in East Wenatchee–yes, it’s still OUR home (sell, baby, sell!) though we’re now living in southern Oregon. I was there to check on the house, do some packing and take care of end-of-the-season chores in the yard. This year’s annual putting-the-garden-to-bed flurry of activity was also my farewell to the spot of land I have stewarded over half-a-dozen years. For me, saying goodbye to my garden is as difficult as parting with the house that has been our dream home, refuge and shelter the last six-plus years. I’d rather do yard work than house work any day, and working outside is my own personal form of therapy. My daughters half jokingly claim that I love my plants more than I love them, and I half jokingly reply that they could be right: the plants don’t talk back nor give me sleepless nights. I relish the early spring days when the warming sun draws me out to sweep aside last year’s leaves to uncover tulip and daffodil shoots pushing up through still-frosty ground or tiny swirls of bright green foliage emerging around the rotten stems of died-back perennials. April and May bring some new vision of rebirth every day: the weeping cherry suddenly in full bloom, peonies unfurling their lush petals like a debutante swirling her full-skirted ball gown, chives and baby lettuce offering to refresh my winter-weary palate. Summer brings with it the embarrassment of riches from the vegetable garden and roses and rudbekias and bees drowsing over catmint. In September and October, the reds of dogwood, maple and burning bush and the yellows of larch, aspen and cherry make up for fewer hours of sunlight. But there is something especially appealing to me in these early November days when all the burst and blossom of the growing season give way to the hush and rest of winter. Wednesday was bright but cold, and I raked the leaves from flower borders to lawn for sweeping up with the mower, saving bags of leaves for compost that (hopefully) some other gardener will be spreading on the beds next year. The lawn got a final, very short cut, contributing the green counterpoint to the compost bin. There is something very satisfying in looking out over that flat, neat expanse of leaf-free grass. The next day was dreary, foggy and wet, but I couldn’t avoid hours of cutting back rose canes and frost-blackened perennials and pulling up rotting annuals and tomato plants. As I worked my way around the property, I recalled when I had planted this shrub or cleared that spot for herbs, and noted how tall those little trees we added had grown in just a few years. At the end of the day, I surveyed my domain of neatly trimmed beds, soil heaped over rose crowns and tender root systems, satisfied that I had tucked up my “babies” and protected them as best I could for the coming snow and wind and cold. As hard as it always is to leave a place behind that I have tended and fussed over, I know that I have left a bit of myself here for others coming after me to enjoy. Should I come back this way years from now, I will be able to measure how much more those trees have grown and how those roses still bloom and the clematis climbs by the door. It is enough. Patty Vanikiotis, proofreader