Waking the Garden, Part II

The chirp of chilled, fat robins bathing in melted pools of snow along the alleyway is the only wake up call we need. If the snow suprised us in autumn, my boy’s job is to pull the tomato cages from their dried, viney captors. He relishes in the fight they give. He stacks them as neatly as their tines and his 8 year gardening prowess allows. He then gathers the twig markers and assesses winter’s toll. Too short, they become fodder for the first flames of the firepit. Too thin, he buries them in the earth to provide the worms a playground of sorts...”something for them to climb on under there.” We then set upon the task of composting the leaf blanket the trees gingerly left in the fall. With a sturdy old hoe two feet taller than him and his knee high rubber chore boots, he faces a dilemma. The boy in him wants to thwack the leaves and vines into an earthy submission, turning them under like the someone he is, one who hasn’t been truly “boy dirty” for months. The gardener in him knows he needs to be wary of the tightly furled rhubarb heads, tender raspberry shoots, and the creeping strawberry runners that have somehow secretly found their way over to the tomatoes’ spot. To his delight, the chives still smell bitter-green onion grass-just like they did last summer; and the others herbs, although dead and dried, have babies at their feet...tiny green offspring. We chop and turn and smooth the ground, navigating around what we can, properly burying that which we cut down in our enthusiasm...back to the earth. Once turned, the soil is black, fresh, aromatic-nearly edible itself. He balls it up in his hand and watches it fall, creased with his small grip, thudding whole back to the bed we have made. “It’s too wet to plant, huh mama?” Yes, my boy...too wet to plant, but we’ll check again tomorrow. Our hands are caked-a gritty, earthen paste coats our palms as we walk to the shed to put up tools and wash off with the hose. “Glad thing it’s spring, huh mama?” Yes, my boy. It’s a very glad thing.

Waking the Garden, Part I

Spring comes suddenly some years in the midwest. One moment the snow is blanketing the landscape, the next, wee green sprouts are sticking up through the chilled earth. It seems you need only a jacket to ward off the morning chill, and the evening air is moist with fog and promise. Other years it comes on softly...misty mornings yield to silver sunshine, and the mountains of snow that were the winter playground of my children shrink, gray and dirty. Each day the fort slumps smaller, and snowmen lose their arms and noses and begin to look like victims of a sunshiny homocide. I can’t say one way is better than the other, but when my children lay claim to discoveries around the yard, I know it is time to wake the garden. Jacob is usually the first to notice changes in the flower beds. He, more than anyone else in our family, embraces the yard through all of its seasons. Retrieving a ball from the slushy snow, he bends down to discover crocus. “Mom! You will not BELEEEEVE it! There are PURPLE FLOWERS in the SNOW!” Collecting nearly black, wet sticks from the ice storm in late winter, he finds a brave, if not foolish, tulip poking its tiny crown-like spire above the mulch. “MAAAAMAAAA! I found something GREEEEEEN!” The strawberry plants, he swears, were green all winter, “sleeping under the blankets” of snow and leaves moldered tan and black. When last year’s twig row markers are bare, and the skins of last season’s last tomatoes are unearthed, it is time to wake the garden...

Ice, Ice Baby...

Ok, ok, ok...soon I'll be rolling, in a 2004 NEW to ME Explorer. It is black (not tan and rust like my van), seats 7 WITH cargo room, has a CD playa...I know...old school, but I have wanted one since I was in COLLEGE, AND it is clean. CLEAN clean. It even smells clean. Despite its clean smell, I put a new Yankee air freshener in there...before I even signed the papers or gave up the money. I knew it was meant to be. Back to its cleanliness...there are no crayons stuck to its carpet. The cupholders and not sticky with chocolate milk and stained with Diet Coke. It does not have the remnants of daycare stickers plastered to its windows. AND...it will all be mine...tomorrow.

I'm OK, You're OK...

Life is good, now that the storm of what would have been my mom's 60th birthday has passed along with the 9 year anniversary of her death. The hubs and I had our last...hopefully...coming to Jesus moment. We are working on it, and after all, don't we all have to do that in our lives? We are in a better place than we were, and that's what we're building on. I am ready for spring, in more ways than one...