1. Never mind “you can never step into the same river twice” — you can never dig the same garden twice. This is my fourth year gardening in this Heraclitean yard, and every year I dig up something that wasn’t there last year. Soccer ball-sized rocks, for instance, in a spot which was groomed and aerated to a fine, soft bed last year:
But also strange blue spoons, door knobs, legless action figures of obscure wrestlers, flattened marbles — and, unnervingly, what appears to be broken sections of sewer pipe. Probably just some extra pipe that isn’t for anything in particular, right, heh heh heh? Well, maybe I won’t have to fertilize this year.
2. My kids are lazy. L-A-Z-Y. They get plumb tuckered out after tugging feebly at a piece of clover or two, and have to go put their feet up and watch Wonderpets with some ice water for a while. I’d call them pansies, but . . .
3. I actually admire pansies now. I don’t generally care for floppy flowers, and the weird markings on their faces always reminded me of those irritating, simpering lap dogs:
But they are so tough! They bloom from early spring to late fall, they live through snow, they perk up after being stomped on. They just put their heads down and focus on being flowers. So now I like pansies.
4. I feel the same way about earthworms. How wonderful to be designed so simply, and to do one thing so well for your whole life! Or maybe I just can’t help identifying with something that’s really just all about digestion.
Go, worms!
On the other hand, I guess you could say the same about mosquitoes, and I do not feel the same way about them. Stupid circle of life.
5. If I were you, I wouldn’t go up to a worn-out grandmultipara who is feeling old, haggard, useless, baggy, and drained and ask, “Mama, what does ‘gone to seed’ mean?” Even if you were just thinking about dandelions.
6. Also from the Department of Taking Gardening Too Personally: The seed packet says “thin seedlings when they reach a height of 3-4″.” We’ll see, we’ll see.
7. Some people truly don’t enjoy gardening, and do it out of duty or something. Some people start out all enthusiastic
and then suddenly hate it very much.
Still others have this expression on their face the whole time they’re working in the dirt:
but they are very, very happy.
Bonus 8: My daughter says she remembers how, last year, we used to go outside and EAT stuff, and that was FUN! And why we don’t have a venchable garden this year? (She doesn’t consider basil to be a venchable, I guess. What is this, June? Maybe it’s not too late!)
