 There are lovely little pink blossoms on my peach tree and they are totally meaningless on such a day as this. Maybe they want me to be excited....but it's gray and cold and flowers are absurd today. ABSURD. Here's how they make me feel:
You know how when you just had a bad breakup....like just thirty minutes ago and all you want to do is sit on the couch and drink too much and eat ice cream in your fuzzy socks and pajama pants and contemplate your own slow, sad slide to the grave, alone, dirty shuffling through life with your flavored brandy and too many cats because the love of your life just left you for that girl with the pink hair that works at the deli by the tattoo parlor and your life is over and all that crap.....and your super perky friend with the perfect life comes by because she knows the pink haired girl's best friend's sister and she found out about your breakup almost before you did... and she proceeds to tell you that your ex sucked and that you were always too good for him anyway and how six months from now you will be happy this happened and you and your ex both had big noses and your children would have been ugly anyway....and you want to kill her because....YOU DON'T WANT TO BE HAPPY IN SIX MONTHS...YOU WANT TO BE HAPPY RIGHT NOW...AND YOU WANTED THIS TO WORK AND NO YOU DON'T WANT TO GO TO THE GYM AND SHOPPING AND GO ON A DETOX DIET....you just want to sit on your couch in your crappy pajamas and fuzzy socks and shuffle around in your ratty purple housecoat covered in cat hair and just slide into oblivion and abandon all hope of a happy life.... THAT my friends is how these absurd peach buds make me feel with their vague promise of Spring. I don't want spring tomorrow. I want it today like a four year old wants Christmas on Christmas eve. I can't wait. Do you see those tiny little flowers? There should be fat-bottomed bumble bees becoming deliriously tipsy as they fly impossibly from flower to flower. There should be an early butterfly or two buffeted ever so slightly by a gentle breeze...a warm breeze. I should be sitting on my porch drinking a cool drink while the sun bakes its way into my bones, watching my elderly dog roll in the dirt, and I should be doing this because I have spent the day planting the garden and weeding around the roses. When I have rested, I should be languidly wandering from one stand of bulbs to another awing myself with my own incredible foresight in planting such lovely specimens and once again rejoicing that my poor memory allows me to surprise myself so beautifully. Then I should be wandering happily back to the grill where I should then char myself some asparagus and chicken and watch the smoke drift into the warm blue sky with its puffy, marshmallow clouds. That is what SHOULD be happening. Right now. Not tomorrow or this weekend. I know it's March and March is like that and tomorrow will be better and blah, blah, blah. I don't care...don't be that perky friend. Sit on the couch with me...have a beer....eat some ice cream and don't try to cheer me up.
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I have to confess something terrible...this my vegetable garden. I have excuses, of course. I was burned out after all the gardening I did for the wedding the year before. It rained every weekend last summer; I would have needed a scuba suit to go out and weed it. I took a vacation during prime gardening season. I was kidnapped by aliens in July but wasn't able to talk about it because I signed a gag order upon receiving a settlement for emotional distress. I was waiting for the gardening fairies but the cats ate them. We were busy battling motorcycle gangs of marauding zombies here in Fayetteville and we didn't have time to weed the garden. Or...you know...something like that. Anyway... very good reasons. No matter which excuse you happen to buy, the result for the garden was an almost total devastation by the forces of weeds and thug plants. The middle of the garden is covered in a wide variety of grasses and other weeds and basil that was allowed to seed itself, (there is a black and white cat in the very center as a sort of focal point). If you look to the right of the picture you can see that locust trees and raspberries are creeping in to destroy the cold frame and moving into and under the beds. The locust trees are moving into the compost bin where they will gain super powers and probably begin a march on the house.  After having seen this picture, you might not want any gardening advice from me, but we can learn from the sins of others as well as their wisdom. In fact, that is often the most interesting way to learn and it makes us feel better about ourselves. Go ahead....go look at your yard now, after having seen this picture. You will feel better about your gardening skills.
GARDENING TIP 1: You might want to weed on occasion. GARDENING TIP 2: Raspberries are horrible thugs that will beat up your beans and tomatoes and take their lunch money. They do make raspberries though, so maybe they are more like a charming con man than a thug. You know, the type that you can't help but love even while you're being abused. GARDENING TIP 3: Never let your basil go to seed, unless you really, really, really like basil and never want to grow anything else or eat anything else and you don't mind having it grow under your porch and pop up in the barn and possibly sprout out of your hair or your nose at odd moments. GARDENING TIP 4: Locust trees are a sort of garden super villain. They are covered in thorns and they run 20 foot roots under all of your beds, even the raised beds, and pop out like evil jack in the box clowns, in places you would never expect them. Although at this point, if one popped up in my closet and laughed like the joker, I would not be surprised. Continue to watch this space for more gardening tips. If all goes the way I plan, you may see me win a massive battle against the forces of nature. If not, I will probably just quietly slink away and just never post anymore pictures of the garden at all.  The forces of Spring have begun to infiltrate my yard. Winter fought back yesterday...but these are daffodils people, they are not afraid. The tulips have been surprisingly brave as well. The lenten roses have started blooming and the grape hyacinths are poking up like strange little nose hairs through the leaf mulch. The roses were coated with ice yesterday morning, but they hardly batted an eyelash and the new red growth looks fine today. Spring is slyly creeping in through the freezing rain and sleet and it will not be stopped. I hope.
(Someday, I will write the sad, sad story of the 500 bulbs and the Easter Frost...but I am still working through some anger issues.) |
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