First Friday: Seedy Stuff

It's the best of times to think seeds. 

I'm ready to go. 

Catalogs have been coming, and I've been waiting for a rainy, ugly day. 

By golly, we've got one today.

So, I'm gonna get those catalogs out and start planning the Lovestead gardening program for 2019. 

There's no better time to start planning a garden than when you can't do a dang thing about gardening other than pick out seeds. 

Granted, it's a long, long time before you can or should do anything about those seeds.

Still, just thinking about them serves as an antidote to ugly days of January, like today.

Besides, it's kinda fun just looking at your brand spanking new calendar to figure out what weeks during the next three months would be best for planting tomatoes, geraniums, lettuce, marigolds, pansies and petunias. 

I do know that tomatoes and lettuce always come first for me.  

Soon after that, petunias, pansies and marigold seed goes into the planters.

I learned a few years ago, after a jungle of growing vines formed in my greenhouse, to hold off on the cukes.

Anywho, I'll probably spend some time today making decisions and marking up the catalogs. 

That will come in between puzzling, reading an autobiography and watching developments on Trump's newest brigade of bald, mean-looking "generals."

Yup, January tends to involve a lot more planning than doing, but, as a boss told me many years ago when I was working for the forest service, everything we task that we accomplish is a 50-50 process. 

Fifty percent planning and fifty percent in the doing. 

He shared that observation with me and my working partner as a rationalization after we had expressed frustration with sitting around, twiddling our thumbs too much. 

And, no that wasn't you, Huckleberry!

Many of us tend to have vivid memories of such stunning moments in life.

It's sorta like how we distinctly remember that Mexico was gonna pay for the wall and clearly recall that the government shutdown would be an object of pride for the yellow-haired boss of those bald-headed generals who stood before the cameras at yesterday's hastily called press briefing where no questions were answered. 

Guess it's getting to be time again to pull out Kurt Vonnegut's "Harrison Bergeron" story where every time a character has a lucid, logical thought, a ball peen hammer goes off in their head. 

Unfortunately, not all of us have come equipped with those ball peen hammers in our heads.

Anyone got a catalog where we can order one?

After all, with no ball peen hammers clanging inside my head, I get frustrated and cynical at times. 

I think I'm not alone. 

Oh well! 

Guess I'd better behave and get back to thinking about how much fun it's gonna be to start planting seeds and watch them sprout and then admire the resulting veggies or colorful flowers. 

I don't need a hammer for that.  

Happy Friday.