Saturday, March 21

the gardeners awake



Today is the day of mild 60's, chilly to touch, but the sun calls all the neighbours out to their scruffy yards, pale with winter's faded grass, moist around the muddy edges from recent rains. A green glow vibrates from grass roots up to the trees' swelling limbs, which bud with ruddy red leaves mirroring the cheeks of children hollering in the blue, blue air. The Carolinas are known for their blue skies, a peculiar quality of robin's egg colour highlighted by the white fluffies that drift on our coastal breezes.

I woke to the gruff whine of leaf blowers, answered the door to questions of "where do you find your truck loads of horse manure?"--which we had tried to hide under secondary loads of mulch--and felt a slight nod of pride towards the lord and master of the place who insisted upon doing all our spring yard cleaning a whole month earlier, before the March rains set in. A glance at our sad seedlings, pale and weak from--what? too little sun, no fertilizer in their peat pots, over watering?? --resets my gardening pride barometer; no largess of motivation substitutes for long term experience of growing and tending year in, year out.