By Diane Lockspeiser

“The real secret to a fabulous life is to live imperfectly with great delight.” Anonymous.

I ALMOST didn’t write an article this month, but then was inspired by the above quote that appeared online.

You see, I ALMOST didn’t sign up for the garden tour this year because so many things weren’t perfect. Having been injured this past Spring, I hadn’t pruned the grapevine as well as I should have. I was also behind on other projects I had started, such as leveling the ground under the grape arbor, putting in the rest of the stones there, and fixing the stairway up to the main garden. Winter freezing and thawing tend to heave the wood out of place, making the already difficult climb to be outright precarious.

The hard freeze at the end of May had done a lot of damage to the pear and apple trees (almost no fruit this year), the grapevines, the rhubarb and the asparagus. The hot humid weather that followed brought out many fungi and mildew maladies in several other plants.

However, this year’s theme was “Living with our Landscape” and I knew that our place on this rocky steep hillside has many not usual ideas for people to consider. I relented, joined, and then set about fixing those steps and trying to catch up with the endless weeding.

Shortly after joining, I got sick with a chest infection. Since I avoid antibiotics, it took a while for me to shake it, so I ALMOST cancelled being part of the tour.

Pushing aside my pride, knowing our place wouldn’t be as spruced up as I would have liked, I again relented. I set about to at least fix that stairway with whatever strength I could muster between naps and liquids and other such remedies. The stairway did get done, and I did recover in time.

I’m so glad to have persisted, as it turned out to be such a very lovely day and I truly enjoyed meeting and chatting with all the