My apologies for not writing in a while, but I haven’t felt well for the past few weeks.  I’m sure I’ve said this before, but when you have a long term disability, sometimes it’s hard to tell if you’re sick or if you’re just feeling your same old bad.  Just about everyone I talk to these days feels bad, or has low level depression.  I’ve had extreme fatigue and brain fog.  I’ve also had a lot of allergy problems, which will give symptoms similar to the corona virus.  So I’ve taken my temperature a squillion times, and tried not to get close to anyone.  But with no temperature (well 97 degrees) and no other symptoms to suggest the virus, I just had to wait it out.

And so, though it took longer than I thought, I finally feel less fatigued and foggy.

But what I really want to talk about is my moonflowers.  In March or April, I planted the seeds.  I thought I’d try to have a moonflower social when they started to bloom.  They bloom later in the summer.  They like hot days and the longer nights as we head towards fall.  But simple things like a gathering on the porch aren’t safe now.  But the flowers aren’t worried about that.

Mine began to show little buds as August started.   They grow horns, then split open and start a lime green swirl:

It’s been an unusually rainy summer here, so most things in my garden have been growing  fast.

I kept an eye on this first aggressive bud.

Even though I wouldn’t be able to have people over for iced drinks to celebrate the first bloom of the August, I wanted to at least enjoy it myself.  They have the most marvelous scent — honeysuckle, vanilla, spice.

So when the white starts to  show through the green, it’s almost time.  I took this yesterday morning.  It was cloudy and it rained off and on.  And in the late afternoon it started raining for real.

I hoped the rain would keep it from blooming, but I checked it anyway, and there it was, a flower the size of my palm. 

The rain muted its scent, but I put my nose right inside it and breathed deep — all that is sweet and miraculous about nature filled my lungs.  I took pictures, risking the water getting in my phone.  I heard a long gone old aunt telling me I don’t have have the sense to come in out of the rain.  I just laughed at her voice, an old memory washed away by cool water and the perfume of beauty.

Here you can see how much the bloom grows as it opens:

And here’s a picture I took before I went to bed, a garden moon shining in the dark:

This morning, it had folded itself up into a package.  They only give you a one night stand.  I doubt it was pollinated, I don’t think moths fly in the rain, so I don’t think I’ll get a seed from this one.

But many other buds are growing.  There will be more flowers, there will be seeds.  A cycle of winter, spring and summer will pass, then it will be time for another moonflower party.  Perhaps just for me, perhaps for my friends, too.

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