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Inside The Garden Walls, Saint Thomas, ON (2026)

10/15/2026

Can't get down the back garden this year for any decorating, next year.

Chestnuts
It was the brightest of Thanksgiving Sunday mornings, the kind when the frost struck the earth in the hours just before dawn, the sun burning it away into a heavy dew. The fog of October mornings dusted every gathering of frost breath, sweeping the garden with a freshness that belied the calendar calling to November.
The clouds were large and many, floating in the turquoise sky, the one that had forgotten about sunburn and sun tans. Socks and sweaters were lifted from the back of dresser drawers, jackets pulled from the back recesses of closets, hot drinks replaced lemonade. Mum’s knitting basket reappeared by her chair in the living room, company for her pattern books soon to be clicking needles. A trip to the yarn store was not far off, as soon as the list was made we would be going.
Today it was Thanksgiving Sunday, the last time good summer clothes would be worn to church. Our dresses would be let down from Easter, if we were lucky Gran had made enough hem that they wouldn’t be too short. Mum used to say, “You’ll warm up in the sun when you’re walking there. Mind the road, do what your brother says, behave yourselves.” It was a fair walk to that old Anglican church for little legs, we might see two cars on our journey. Today you would have to cross the main intersection with the light or you wouldn’t get across.
A handful of houses before the church, the sidewalk was littered with prickly fruit. Some had opened, I still remember easing a chestnut out of the shell and into my hands. The smoothness of it, the deep reddish brown colour, that nutty new born chestnut smell, wondering why there was a grey mark on it. I looked up into the bright sky to see the chestnut leaves waving green and yellow over my head, I tucked three of them into my little purse as my brother was yelling from up the street to get going. My feet half skipped and half ran to the wide open church doors, I remember the chestnuts bouncing in my little purse, keeping time with the jiggling coins slipped into my white gloves for the Thanksgiving offering plate.
I can still see my hands barely holding that old church hymnal straight, my voice stumbling along with the hymns I barely knew, and thinking how lovely my little chestnuts would look on the altar with all those pumpkins and squash and autumn flowers. I opened my purse a couple of times during the sermon to see if they were still there. On the way home my brother knocked a few more chestnuts down for us with a piece of a branch. I walked home with my purse open and overflowing, my gloves, and I think my hat. Happily showing them to my Dad he remarked, “oh, you’ve found some conkers. That’s what they call them in England.”
I kept those chestnuts in my room for months, until one day I came home from school and Mum said she had tossed them. The chestnuts one finds at Christmas time for roasting have never been as appealing as those ones. Maybe their story isn’t nearly as appealing after all these years as the memory of my brother knocking them from the trees while we gathered them. We never knew one day our family would be spread far and wide, or disappear, those times would never return. Hello little chestnut, you still have my heart.
Crystal Trojek
October 2025

10/13/2026

Letter for Estella

She was there again this morning, just as the mid October light crept into my garden, as the moon shrank away from the laughing stars, as last night’s fresh raindrops wriggled in an awakening breeze. She must sleep in a magical place of the night world out of danger, frost, and reasoning. I have named her Estella, and every time I see her in the usual place I ask her why she is still yet here. She should be away. Estella grooms herself, looks around and clings defiant to her perch. Estella is an independent hummingbird woman.

I am the caretaker of a garden which in autumn becomes a stop for wayward hummingbirds travelling south. The little iridescent creatures come quietly in the spring, always preferring to sneak up to me and readily converse as I go about the business of gardening: removing spent flowers, counting buds, staking plants, taking pictures, planning changes, acquisitions, avoiding young spiders, me dreaming in leaf and bloom at all hours of the day. Our eyes meet, little wings a blur, little chirpy chats and then they are off.

In autumn though, hummingbirds haunt my garden in numbers, cheeky numbers, aggressive numbers, arguing over who owns my garden patch. Fighting mid air in endless matches, totally unfettered in the cooler air, arguing at feeders, challenging who owns the garden blooms. Zooming past my face, dusting my head, rampant never ending discussions. The tiny things hover around dahlias, count salvia flowers, rest in the sunlight scanning the autumn skies who become less every morning. I wonder how they know, I wonder, if their time in my garden is measured in minutes the same as mine. Evenings get shorter and shorter, we choose to ignore it. We stay.

I have roses climbing the big arbour in my front garden, climbers who I coax to cover the arbour, some years they cover more than others. Some winters the roses have more to make up for than others. Last year I was out pruning roses, a task that I now usually stretch into a week if the weather holds. There’s no reason to hurray, this requires some thought. I leave the largest ones for my husband to cut with the loppers, or a small pruning saw who easily commits to the cutting with painless determination Large old dead cane running up the top of the finial would require getting the big ladder down out of the garage. Decided that it wasn’t worth it, too much effort.

I was thinking the normal summer weather patterns would end the striving rose cane life, a few violent thunderstorms would tear old twigs apart. They would drop down into the centre of the obelisk near its home, rose cane would slip down to the earth. It’s October now, and rose cane is still there. I must admit the rose cane has hosted a number of avian visitors for many weeks, like a lighthouse above my little front garden. Birds often perch amongst the cherry tree branches, the obelisk is a better vantage point. The view must be worth it, the rose is still obliging. Estella comes there every day, clinging to an old rose cane.

I have had difficulty getting a decent pic of Estella, she gave me one two days ago, the last time I saw her. My old shaky hands clicked and clicked with the camera, day before I tried the phone. Not enough zoom. Give me one last hummingbird pic, of Estella. She is the last, and proud of it. Perhaps she will be the first to return in early May, and I will leave that rose cane there if the winter allows, for Estella.

Crystal Trojek
October 13, 2026

10/11/2026

Dining With A Dahlia
It is September, the month when the scraps of the summer garden rise up to be counted. October is not for the faint of heart, or the weak, or those who have given up dreaming. September days are those of miracles, as many as there are in the April garden.
The dahlias rise every morning as if it were a perfect August day. They bend towards the thick green grass, the weight of the dew is now heavy, earwigs lie sleeping in the welcoming arms of every dahlia petal, no matter the colour. By October bees struggle to wedge themselves deep in the face of the dahlias, the evenings are cool and getting cooler. The bees are weary in the cold.
A band of lively and raggedy looking sparrows are swarming the bird feeders, the hummingbirds are gone. They search every petal and stem, perhaps they hope for a few aphids, or some other insect that will satisfy their morning appetite. The wind is already beginning to quilt the few leaves that have fallen in the garden, it is a never ending labour of time invested and an unsatisfied yearning to create a new pattern. Imagination, opportunistic leaves have incredible imagination. A single male sparrow crept along a thin rose stem, bereft of flowers, and hopped on the orange dahlia stage. His companions jockeyed for position on the old wooden ladder, the feeder platform, and a place in the prickly openings of the holly bush.
A damp autumn breeze wove its hands between the flower stems, and brushed the sparrows. The breeze lingered for a moment, and left. The sparrow ruffled his feathers, smoothed them down in perfect order, looked around for signs of danger and then, then he began his short and timely song. A staccato of chirps that seemed to have no beginning or end, because there wasn’t. There would just be another day to sing the same song, over and over. The little song would never grow old, not for me. The notes rode the slight breeze to the other parts of the garden, past the empty flower stems, and the ever congregating leaves of all shapes and colours. The sparrow left each note on the wind, who carries the burden of all of the yesterdays and tomorrows every morning. The dahlia would stand tall while it still had breath. Perhaps he would yet return, perhaps.
Crystal Trojek
October 2023

10/07/2026

What a great day for a little stroll to the corner and back, I noticed my roses are not afraid of the weather forecast. The words, from 'A Shropshire Lad'.

The Old Rose

A rose family once lived in my garden, all born on a slender stem
From a handful of buds they came, for some days at summer’s end

Roses born in October, a fine clutch of June’s leftovers
Son, father, sisters mother each sublimely filled a puzzle

The first rose unfolding as perfume blind ascending
While watched by the second from shadows defending

Blooms shaped finely gathered while softly their petals
Stretched on cool mornings as each left the cradle

A frost found them quietly waiting in shadows
Tears ran from their faces each wept as the moon glowed

The oldest its heart yet beat yellow uncovered
The youngest and smallest grasped hands just above it

The frost now relentless strikes each rose by the hour
It’s family is gathered on stem and the poor ground

Don’t grieve said the roses just formed in my garden
Against winter’s rise do not let yourself harden

While spring’s fresh arising we will find you once more
For the earth calls to roses, “There’s not windows, just doors.”

Crystal Trojek
October 2026

10/06/2026

Black and White

Autumn shapes moments in both black and white

Born quiet and lonely, while creeping at night

The moon captures frost about to be born

When flowers are weary, tired and worn

Stars fashion each wrinkle, crown ice etched leaves

The dahlias hold close, their heart’s sleeping bees

This morning walks slowly crossed autumn’s new skies

The garden is chilled, the warnings were right.

Hummingbird ghosts, oriole shadows

Warblers and thrushes your song’s a cadaver

A handful of blooms will stand ready to battle

Winter’s first meeting, it’s firm in the saddle

Cover me, walk with me, dance one more time

My garden bleeds white with pain in its eyes

Undying we change, one brief life births another

Never an ending, my immortal beloved.

Crystal Trojek

October 2026

10/03/2026

Orange Day Lilies

Once upon a time there was an orange daylily who one might expect lived its best life in the summer garden, when bees and butterflies danced with hummingbirds all about, when warm summer days never seemed to end, when his orange life was the perfect life. Orange could be found in many places, for weeks on end, for orange is the perfect colour. Ask an oriole. In the winter months, in his sleepy little quiet world beneath the snow covered earth, the daylily dreamed of how many blooms might be born in the summer when daylily time arrived in the garden. He basically counted buds, even choosing names for them all, beginning with the letter “O”.

Day lily remembered how he tingled all over when his first green leaves stretched from the earth, pushing aside the old brown remains from last summer. Raindrops bathed the new leaves, reciting poetry about all the places they had already visited this spring, the words disappeared in rain puddles slinking into the ground as the days grew longer. He dreamed of birds coming near on spring days, selecting crinkly old leaves from his fast greening hair, carrying them away for nest building. The goodness of the earth never ended, it gave up the musty just pulled smell of the leaves being chosen for bird’s nests, their strength would yet last long enough to cradle new life as the eggs hatched. The green leaves multiplied so quickly in May, when spring was confident snow would come no more for a brief visit. The last snowflakes soon melted in the sunlight, white sparkles soon disappeared and dribbled down into the earth where his thirsty orange heart was already loving the process of organizing flower shoots.

It was about the first part of May when the collage of orange fairies appeared. Born of coral to cream filled sunsets, the fairies were born of every shade of orange possible. Sunset skies were flooded with orange. The palest shades became fairy flesh, with sparkling apricot freckles appearing on fairy faces at the advice of the stars just popping out into the spring night skies. Orange velvet trousers and vests, peachy orange silk and satin dresses, the boys made apricot hellebore into hats, the girls plucked bunches of numerous shades of salmon tulips, even the narcissus. The girls found orange violas, for the making of perfect fans.

The fairies discussed the ginger stripes of a wandering cat, who arrogantly exhibited his orange paws and casually mentioned a number of his orange offspring who lived in the neighbourhood. The cat drew circles in the night air with his ginger tail, as if he were attempting to paint the night sky ginger, or perhaps just the newborn hellebore leaves. As ginger was not quite the shade of orange at the top of the fairies list, and the cat had obviously already chosen to wear it, the orange fairies listened intently as the cat spoke of blue eyed ginger kittens about the garden neighbourhood who were his. He actually admitted it outright, as he purred out his accomplishments. His children might just visit the garden one day.

The girl fairies plaited their hair and intertwined multiple shades of orange ribbon as decoration. They discovered soft green moss for the making of fairy shoes, bright green buds for buttons. Every time the fairies dressed they did their best, for when the moon was gone they would disappear into the bright arms of the rising sun, as fairies had no place in the daytime world. The orioles had told them so, when they were happily dancing with new leaves. All flavours of peach roses lived in the garden, with peach kisses and peach stories to tell as the day lily plants passed their late spring days. As early summer arrived the day lily roots squirmed and wriggled below the ground at all hours, as each new flower shoot sprang towards the skies. And on such a perfect summer morning, in a perfect summer light, the sun christened and blessed the day lilies orange with all its might, as orange as they could possibly be. The fairies would be proud.

Crystal Trojek
October, 2026

10/01/2026

Went for a drive yesterday, saw a few boats being towed home, most likely going to storage for the winter. Although we don't own a boat now, Hazel was fond of boating. An excerpt from my
"Fog" story:
The clouds over the lake, not many miles away, were whipping up a bowl of fog, which was ripening into snowflakes that would soon spill over the edge of pot and the wind would sn**ch each one. The snowflakes became more and more excited as they grew in size, white and new and fluffy, so excited they could hardly wait to be finished and begin their journey, wherever that might be. Their destination was of no consequence, they did not care. They were going! The sky was grumpy grey, the wind would make him more fretful as it scratched the snowflakes away and left him to look over the writhing lake of whitecaps who were jumping in the air and attempting to skin an old log of its twigs and bark as it was floating around in the middle of no where. The polar wind was strong, enough to freeze the fog and the lake. It would do so in not so many days now, starting with that sand on the beach that had sat there for months doing nothing but aggravating the wind as it sent waves and waves across it.
December fog had lost track of her elder sister, September. She was much stronger and faster at wrapping up corn stalks, pumpkins, and school buses every morning. She was better at weaving a blanket of fog to the right thickness, full and dense but still light so that the sun could burn it up quite easily by 10 a.m. Then she would just make another blanket. It was a steady business for some weeks, the making of fog blankets. Occasionally she had so much fog she stretched her fingers across the lake, because it felt so good and looked so wonderful to see the fog icing the lake in just a few minutes, and it would paint the coloured leaves just enough to make them sparkle in the rising sun.

10/01/2026

The Road to Autumn

The lake was flat with the quiet weariness that cradles us all after a struggle with nature, the one that took almost everything we had within us. The sun now beamed happily, a few soft cries of the resident seagulls danced on the slight breeze, floating in the warming air. The eternal steadiness of the lake water could never be overcome by any act of nature, sun and sand, rock and wood, every part of an almost autumn morning still breathed, slowly and alive. The gravel road disappeared at the lake, its gravel feet dishevelled and unsteady, bits of roots and bark and soil and yesterdays watching the lake from above, outlined in the morning sunlight. At this moment, a few feet below, one could just hear the infant morning waves kissing the little beach.

It was but a short distance inland to the front door of a small rural forest where life knew no beginning and no end. As it had done for many years a small cornfield edged the sides of that little gravel path. The road divided a raggedy line of old trees, young trees, fallen trees, moss covered trees, and trees yet to be born who could be found there. Wild roses, asters, serviceberry shrubs, nanny berry, milkweed, all threaded together with wild grapevine. Hawks often called from above to the vine makers who pursued their hobby with great passion, year after year. Their roadside work was never finished, even if the working combine tore and frayed the wild edges while happily gulping down corn rows.

In warmer months I stand on this particular road while being ardently scolded by chipmunks. They do not care for visitors, even if I am quiet, and alone. I am looking for birds, not chipmunks. Perhaps I should bring them sunflower seeds, they would like me better. In the winter months they are safe in their underground winter fortresses, their images mirrored in the little ponds temporarily forgotten, their chirps replaced by the creaking of trees, the straining of bark in the winter winds, the small foraging noises made by woodpeckers, brown creepers, nuthatches, other birds scouring the forest for food. Those days will come, but today there is a yellow mist that forms a dense golden froth along the woodland path and gravel road that knows autumn is on the doorstep. The sunshine boils the most innocent of yellows, attracting the travelling monarchs, swallowtails, all type of butterflies and insects who enjoy its golden conversation on September days.

Baked in the meagre sunshine that was offered by a crowd of forest trees, the birds are there, for now. They feed on that which life sends them, they begin to say goodbye and travel south. It is time. They already knew that the cool mornings were just footsteps away from the arrival of the nomadic master of the greatest of travelling frost painters. They will awake soon, and quietly rise to their eternal work, without looking at a calendar. There will be less of us here to enjoy such pretty frosted mornings, but there will be others too. Many others, and they will all be just as fine as this moment was.

Crystal Trojek
October 2026

10/01/2026

The Corn Sheller
There was once a corn sheller, who was born strong and young, who woke every morning filled with the joy of tomorrow, a hunger for the feeling of the bright sunlight outlining its new paint, and a deep longing for the humming of its iron parts as someone turned its perfectly cast handle that turned the perfectly cast wheel as perfectly shelled corn poured from its perfectly cast spout. Its metal ears longed for the sounds of the excitement of the farm animals as the churning of fresh dried corn being plucked from each dried corn cob meant food was coming. Good food. The sun rose every day, even if it was nestled amongst rain clouds the corn sheller knew it was there.
The big barn doors yawned wide and everyone in the barn gulped the abundant clean air that crept softly across the old wooden boards on fine spring days, the heat of summer swam steadily through the barn as yellow straw bales were stacked high inside. The autumn air marched crisp and clean through the barn where the corn sheller stood, whispering in the thin cracks of barn boards that covered the wooden beams, the same boards allowed a breath of fine snowflakes to dust the floor when someone arrived to turn its handle once again and feed the animals who depended on the corn sheller all winter.
A few times the face of winter was as ugly as a wild summer thunderstorm whose lightning stabbed the air all round the barn, the wind rattling its good strong boards. The snow was winter deep a few times but the animals stayed warm and well with the corn sheller in the barn. The corn sheller was not afraid, it ground on, a wooden wheelbarrow always brought more corn to the sheller, there was always someone coming to turn its handle as the corn streamed fine and yellow into a pail or danced on the floor as the chickens and ducks caught every kernel. Life was good.
The sheller knew nothing of the earth turning, the years passing, it ground on. The larger animals disappeared first, children grew up and people grew old. The sheller felt the same as it did in its youth, its handle was turned slower, its paint had faded a bit but it didn’t mind. The sheller did not know when the last golden kernel fell into the old pail, or that the wooden wheelbarrow was parked in the corner for the last time. Blessed it was, time was merciful. The sheller just waited, as it had always done, for the barn doors to open again. They did not, for years, they did not.
One spring day when the snow was melting fiercely, when winter was dripping from the barn every where, when the little creek was full snow laughing its way between the warming fields, when the birds sang brightly outside, the big barn doors were opened once again. The sheller was dusty, but ready and hopeful. Rimed with dust and full of memories, the corn sheller stood tall. Dirty and old, it stood tall. This particular sheller was rescued from the scrap metal landfill, where metal goes to die. Rescued by some one who knew I would love it, rusted and hopeful and still full of life abundant, even though I do not crank its handle and see if the wheel still turns. Bird sing to it as the sun rises, flowers bloom at its old but strong feet. I love the painted artwork on its faded heart that still beats, I love it because it has so much to say. it will winter out of the weather until next spring, and when I come back to my snowless garden in the spring, it will come with me even though we are old we will come once again. We will come.
Crystal Trojek
September 2024

09/24/2026

Still one of my favourite poems and photos:
Purple, give me purple in my garden .

Purple
when I was purple, purple loved
my garden shared its purple blood
my darkest shared a secret fine
amongst the leaves I intertwined
I fell, and wandered lavender free
the air allowed pure friendship dreams
I purpled spaces thick and full
and tender reached for beautiful
the moments passed as I stood tall
I did not mind the surest crawl
I teased the blues, mixed bits of red,
but purple genes still made my bed
I am the first, the last, the middle
frost bound today my soul is civil
for purple is my purest self
I spread each shade to slowly melt
and what I leave remember shared
I’m sleeping safe, without a care
I will return as moon and sun
I never die, I am beloved.
when I was purple, purple loved
my garden shared its purple blood.
crystal trojek
October 2019

Inside The Garden Walls

10/15/2026

10/13/2026

10/11/2026

10/07/2026

10/06/2026

10/03/2026

10/01/2026

10/01/2026

10/01/2026

09/24/2026

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