My Trip in the Garden - I May Look Like an Earth Mother
I am equipped with a shovel and something I think is called a trowel, whistling "This is my Father's world" - or as it's now sung in the United Church, "This is God's wondrous world.
" I am ready to co-create with the Master Gardner - though this wasn't my Plan A.
Normally my hubby, Laurence, does the mucking around in the garden, but he's away.
I may look like an Earth Mother - but I am quite happy to enjoy nature from a balcony or a flower shop.
Step One.
The balcony.
This part was pretty easy.
I simply bought some hanging plants from the Elizabeth Fry Society.
All I have to do is remember to water them.
The begonias nearly begoned a week after I got them.
Laur thought I was watering them, and I thought he was ...
Well, you get the sad picture.
Step Two.
The front flower garden.
The earth is hard as coal.
It seems to me I have seen Laurence do something with the shovel so I reach for it and manage to cut myself on the rustiest part.
Take a break for a tetanus shot.
Now I'm digging holes with the trowel to stick my plants into, and I look down and realize I'm missing a strip of skin, about an inch long, on my finger.
No idea how or when that happened but by now it's caked with dirt.
Take a break to clean it out and apply generous layers of polysporin and band-aids.
Step Three.
The side gardens.
If the front flower-bed was coal, the side flower beds are diamond.
My whistling has now turned to crabbing and I have decided I like the parable told by Jesus where the seeds get planted seemingly on their own and grow regardless of human effort.
I hose down the ground to soften it up a little and am able to make finger-sized holes with a screwdriver and stick in some seeds.
By now it's just after six pm and the mosquitoes and black flies understand the spraying to be an invitation to dinner.
I am beginning to look like I am plagued by boils.
Step Four.
I hadn't planned on a step four but when I was getting the hose I noticed the six huge bags of leaves in the back yard that had been there for 8 months already.
Ergh! I find a wheelbarrow in our caterpillar-filled shed and started hauling the bags, one by one, to the compost pit at the back of our lot.
I split the bags open and dump the sludge in.
Part of a tree has fallen down alongside the pit and, on my last load, I trip over a branch and fall sideways into the compost and onto parts of the tree.
I would be howling at the rot I am lying in, but all I can think is: What did I break? Have I hit my head? Slowly I get up and though I look like the swamp creature - I am fine! Nothing that an indoor shower won't fix.
Except that by the next day I am sporting two monstrous bruises - one on my arm and one on my ankle.
When I explain to people the reason for my tetanus shot, infected hand, carbuncles and contusions, I am asked, "Do you think maybe the Good Lord is trying to tell you something?!" Hmm.
The organist at church, Irene, told me an adage her mother told her, "A whistling girl and a crabbing hen are sure to come to some bad end.
'' But it's not Biblical, and I note that she whistles too.
My plants and seedlings are doing good, and Irene is happily expecting a new crop of great-grandchildren.
This truly is God's wondrous world!
" I am ready to co-create with the Master Gardner - though this wasn't my Plan A.
Normally my hubby, Laurence, does the mucking around in the garden, but he's away.
I may look like an Earth Mother - but I am quite happy to enjoy nature from a balcony or a flower shop.
Step One.
The balcony.
This part was pretty easy.
I simply bought some hanging plants from the Elizabeth Fry Society.
All I have to do is remember to water them.
The begonias nearly begoned a week after I got them.
Laur thought I was watering them, and I thought he was ...
Well, you get the sad picture.
Step Two.
The front flower garden.
The earth is hard as coal.
It seems to me I have seen Laurence do something with the shovel so I reach for it and manage to cut myself on the rustiest part.
Take a break for a tetanus shot.
Now I'm digging holes with the trowel to stick my plants into, and I look down and realize I'm missing a strip of skin, about an inch long, on my finger.
No idea how or when that happened but by now it's caked with dirt.
Take a break to clean it out and apply generous layers of polysporin and band-aids.
Step Three.
The side gardens.
If the front flower-bed was coal, the side flower beds are diamond.
My whistling has now turned to crabbing and I have decided I like the parable told by Jesus where the seeds get planted seemingly on their own and grow regardless of human effort.
I hose down the ground to soften it up a little and am able to make finger-sized holes with a screwdriver and stick in some seeds.
By now it's just after six pm and the mosquitoes and black flies understand the spraying to be an invitation to dinner.
I am beginning to look like I am plagued by boils.
Step Four.
I hadn't planned on a step four but when I was getting the hose I noticed the six huge bags of leaves in the back yard that had been there for 8 months already.
Ergh! I find a wheelbarrow in our caterpillar-filled shed and started hauling the bags, one by one, to the compost pit at the back of our lot.
I split the bags open and dump the sludge in.
Part of a tree has fallen down alongside the pit and, on my last load, I trip over a branch and fall sideways into the compost and onto parts of the tree.
I would be howling at the rot I am lying in, but all I can think is: What did I break? Have I hit my head? Slowly I get up and though I look like the swamp creature - I am fine! Nothing that an indoor shower won't fix.
Except that by the next day I am sporting two monstrous bruises - one on my arm and one on my ankle.
When I explain to people the reason for my tetanus shot, infected hand, carbuncles and contusions, I am asked, "Do you think maybe the Good Lord is trying to tell you something?!" Hmm.
The organist at church, Irene, told me an adage her mother told her, "A whistling girl and a crabbing hen are sure to come to some bad end.
'' But it's not Biblical, and I note that she whistles too.
My plants and seedlings are doing good, and Irene is happily expecting a new crop of great-grandchildren.
This truly is God's wondrous world!
Source...