March 26
Before
the springtime snow fell, I spent a recent afternoon planting peas in
one of our raised garden beds and filling our front-porch planter
with bright-petaled flowers. For weeks, I've felt like a goldfinch
shut inside a canary cage, wanting so much to fly outside, but
needing to take care of a mountain of indoor tasks instead. But
finally I could layer up with flannel and fleece and breathe in the
familiar scent of peat moss as I gathered my tools from the garden
shed. The first raking of soil showed the value of adding fallen
leaves and other dirt-boosters, which my husband had tilled into each
bed last fall. The soil was damp but light, easy to rake into smooth
rows for the “Sugar Lace” snap peas I planted. True to an
impetuous gardener's nature, I bought two packages of the peas. The
first pack perfectly filled the three rows in the raised bed. So I
will mark my calendar and plant the other packet in a few weeks.
Earlier
in the day, I'd bought a big bag of peat moss, with an anti-crow
strategy in mind. Those beautiful black birds with the raucous caws
are very intelligent and observant, and they love newly sprouted
peas. I saw a couple of crows (too few to be a murder, but they still
made me uneasy,) hanging out in our nearby oak tree and probably
noting my pea-planting date on their smart phones. (I use a
paper-and-pen planner, which probably tells you who's more likely to
outfox whom in the coming pea wars.) To distract the crows, I tossed
handfuls of shelled peanuts at the base of the oak tree, out of sight
of the raised beds. While my nemeses swooped, cawed, and snagged
peanuts, I sprinkled a thin layer of peat moss over the newly planted
rows of peas. Let's hope the extra protection will give the
defenseless seedlings a little extra time to muscle up.
Rain
started falling just as I finished with the peas, so I didn't have to
water them, but could move on to my next project: setting pansies and
ranunculas into the brick planter on our front porch. The flowers
seemed to glow clear red, deep purple, buttercup yellow and misty
pink, and I felt the joy that always rushes through me at the
season's first planting. For most of my life, autumn has been my
favorite season. I love the vivid jewel colors of the leaves, the
deep blue of our Idaho sky, and the tang of wood smoke at early dusk.
But I've come to see autumn as a foreshadowing of death, the
once-glorious leaves browning dry and scattering in a bitter wind;
the plants of summer, bare with lost petals, going dormant to their
season in the underworld. Now I celebrate the hope of springtime in
my garden and my life.
Our
Old English sheepdog, Rags, has lived to see a new season, although
“see” is an unkind word to use for our blind and frail dog. Rags sleeps
through his days now, waking only for slow, unsteady walks to the
backyard or to his food and water bowls inside. He still perks up
every night when my husband, Lee, comes home from work. But Rags'
daily routine has been upset lately because of a remodeling project
at our house. His water and food bowls are in new places, and he has
to use a different door to reach the backyard and come inside again.
Add the whine of a power saw to the disorder, and our big, shaggy dog
has reason to be confused. When the noise of the saw seemed too
close, Rags howled in fear. So he lay on his couch, with his head on
my lap and my hand massaging his neck, until the power tool finally
shut down and our good dog could drift into sleep. (Rags later
recovered and told his best buddy, Benjamin BadKitten that, if only
we had given him a tool belt, he could have helped the remodeling
crew.)
After
my planting was done and while the rain still fell, I went looking
for springtime in my garden, I found it in the tiny red buds of
three flowering quince bushes, only thin, slender twigs when I
mulched them in October. They, like so many of nature's miracles,
are tougher than they seem – and some new spring day, not this year
but maybe the next, they will bloom crimson, with golden centers .
Near the quince, our blueberry bushes are coming back to life with
their own buds, which I hope will flower into berries this summer. I
walked into the front garden, bent low and found the surprise of
fringed delphinium shoots, pointed threads of phlox , filaments of
coreopsis, strawberry-leafed hints of potentilla, and scalloped
clusters of poppy leaves. A young man in a vintage Bob Seger t-shirt
passed by with two small, leashed dogs, and then turned back to ask
about the poppies, because similar plants were growing in his yard,
he said. I pulled up a small plant marker, with the
“Heartbeat”poppy's Latin name (papaver orientalis) and a photo of
deep red petals ringing its black center. He smiled and said, “I
thought they were carrots and kept pulling them up.” As he and his
friendly dogs went on their way, I paused to feel grateful for
another of springtime's gifts: small, memorable conversations with
people who pass by while I'm in my Church of Dirt and Flowers.
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