For the umpteenth time, I went to the mailbox, filled with great expectation, only to open the door and pull out nothing but “pay-ups” or catalogs meant to entice us to pay-up. Yesterday I got to the point of wondering if they hadn’t received my order and my check. Time was a wastin’ and my frustration mode was inching upward.
I went to town to do some errands. Upon arriving home, there it sat, the brown box, delivered by UPS this time rather than the U.S. Postal Service of years past. I smiled.
Throwing another chunk of wood in the fire and cutting off a slice of Tillamook medium cheddar cheese for my lunch (after using the same knife to open the box), I brought the box and cheese to the living room, sat on the couch and began fingering through the order.
Burpee seeds for 2009 and the gift for an order above 50 bucks. Unlike salad-mix seeds from the past, this year’s gift is plant food. I’ll have to give it a try, but before doing so, I’ll have to deposit seeds in the soil and wait for them to sprout and send up shoots of ‘maters, cukes, melons, peppers and such. Then, I sprinkle on the gift mix and wait for something beyond a miracle to make those plants really grow.
I love the day the seeds arrive. It signals the beginning of yet another year of meticulous planning, daily nurturing and visions of how good this is all gonna taste in summer and fall, snatched straight from the garden.
This year’s seed supply includes a packet of peppers of all colors, and I ordered bigger cantaloupes for the horse apple pile behind the barn. I figured if cantaloupes will grow as happily as mine did last year in that pile, I’ll add some watermelons and a batch of the peppers. Peppers are a bit slow in my normal soil, so I’m figuring that giving them a try alongside the melons could be the trick. I’ll know in the fall.
For now, I’ve got work to do. My fingers, which have finally gotten back to looking as normal as my hands will ever look, are once again doomed to months of digging in the soil, yanking weeds and getting chapped and cracked in the process, are probably dreading the future.
But I appreciate them and the sacrifice they make for me every year through the growing season to ensure another crop of goodies from the ground.
Today I’ll probably plant peppers and tomatoes. And, each day for the next week, I’ll figure out a few more items to start. Gardening is not all about eating. Gardening does much more than feed the gut. It feeds the soul, and sometimes that’s a lot more important.
So, my soul is happy this morning now that the brown box full of this year’s future has arrived. I just don’t know what my fingers think, and I’m not giving them a chance cuz I’m keeping them busy here at the computer board so they don’t have time to think about “what she’s gonna do with us now that those seeds are here.”
I went to town to do some errands. Upon arriving home, there it sat, the brown box, delivered by UPS this time rather than the U.S. Postal Service of years past. I smiled.
Throwing another chunk of wood in the fire and cutting off a slice of Tillamook medium cheddar cheese for my lunch (after using the same knife to open the box), I brought the box and cheese to the living room, sat on the couch and began fingering through the order.
Burpee seeds for 2009 and the gift for an order above 50 bucks. Unlike salad-mix seeds from the past, this year’s gift is plant food. I’ll have to give it a try, but before doing so, I’ll have to deposit seeds in the soil and wait for them to sprout and send up shoots of ‘maters, cukes, melons, peppers and such. Then, I sprinkle on the gift mix and wait for something beyond a miracle to make those plants really grow.
I love the day the seeds arrive. It signals the beginning of yet another year of meticulous planning, daily nurturing and visions of how good this is all gonna taste in summer and fall, snatched straight from the garden.
This year’s seed supply includes a packet of peppers of all colors, and I ordered bigger cantaloupes for the horse apple pile behind the barn. I figured if cantaloupes will grow as happily as mine did last year in that pile, I’ll add some watermelons and a batch of the peppers. Peppers are a bit slow in my normal soil, so I’m figuring that giving them a try alongside the melons could be the trick. I’ll know in the fall.
For now, I’ve got work to do. My fingers, which have finally gotten back to looking as normal as my hands will ever look, are once again doomed to months of digging in the soil, yanking weeds and getting chapped and cracked in the process, are probably dreading the future.
But I appreciate them and the sacrifice they make for me every year through the growing season to ensure another crop of goodies from the ground.
Today I’ll probably plant peppers and tomatoes. And, each day for the next week, I’ll figure out a few more items to start. Gardening is not all about eating. Gardening does much more than feed the gut. It feeds the soul, and sometimes that’s a lot more important.
So, my soul is happy this morning now that the brown box full of this year’s future has arrived. I just don’t know what my fingers think, and I’m not giving them a chance cuz I’m keeping them busy here at the computer board so they don’t have time to think about “what she’s gonna do with us now that those seeds are here.”
1 comment:
Hi Marianne, just wanted to say, whether intentional or not, I love the effect of the 'hanging' word at the end of the 5 sequential paragraphs, it makes a simple poem:
Grow
Garden
the fall
Future
the Ground
Happy Friday!
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