and your soul will know peace.
The Blue Lake beans have germinated!
First, they'll grow into vines.
My friend, Judy Crosby, woke me this morning with a phone call. Usually, I'm up early but with all the wind in the valley lately, the pollen is wearing me out. Judy called because she had read about the upcoming wedding in my backyard and my mission to find bargains for a red Japanese Maple tree, hydrangeas, vincas, and pots.
I would have jumped out of bed, dressed, and headed to town but here is the thing, the wedding invitation that I received Saturday (the ceremony is this coming Sunday.) halted a day of plant shopping. The young couple had changed the site!
The good side of this is that Joe and I washed the winter muck off the windows, inside the house and out. I trimmed the small weeping willow grove. (A beautiful place for round tables dressed in white linens.) I weeded, pruned, and raked the perennial garden. It blooms in soft whites, pinks, and lavender. Joe tested the lawn sprinklers. Early morning the little sprinkler heads pop up and hiss liquid across partly brown blades to turn them green.
These are chores normally done in May, undoubtedly this time for a specific date. For a special couple.
Funny how we work faster and harder when company is coming.
In my household, Joe knows guests are coming when I've combed the area rug's fringe, straight and even. He knows to get out of my way when I rush around the house, a crazed woman. Hide dirty pans in the oven for instance, because someone called to say he or she would arrive in five minutes. Wearing a bra is a for-sure sign that company is on their way. If an unexpected car trails up the driveway, there's no time for a hair or face makeover. Just get the darn bra on. When my sister comes on one of her rare (and I mean RARE) visits, for days I tidy the grounds and gleam every nook and cranny in the house.
By now, you've probably sized me up pretty good so I won't go into what all this says about me. Whatever vain character lies beneath the surface, I do love to create an intimate setting in the garden for guests. It makes them feel special. Beforehand, I will fuss so much I'm exhausted afterwards. At the end of the day, the sparkle in their eyes makes it worthwhile. Big smiles, memorable moments with nature tucked into their hearts. The goal for any outdoor gathering.
I think it's time for a party.
I love a good day, when something simple presses through your veins and you can't help smiling until the nighttime stars appear. To a mathematician a good day would be solving a complicated problem. A surfer looks to the ocean for a good day. For a gardener, it might be tilling the earth, harvesting veggies or flowers or if you're like me, planting.
If I had a million dollars, I'd buy a million plants. Pot some up and earth-bound the rest. What an exotic dance that would be, a regular ongoing gala drunk in happiness for months. Heaven! Pain and sorrow forgotten for the duration, unanswered questions and forked roads put aside. Inactive dreams and disappointments lost in ecstasy. This is why people have hobbies. For good days, like the one I recently had.
My husband's cowboy friend who owns the cattle grazing my land rounded them up and hauled them off to the property he recently bought. Cowboy friend won't be bringing them back. (No, Cowboy's not tall, dark, and handsome. Heck, he doesn't even wear a cowboy hat. He does ride a horse and brand cattle. By my standards, that's a cowboy.) The cattle-less pasture opened up opportunity. The Blue Lake bean seeds that the raised bed couldn't accommodate could now grow along the fence. No cows to eat the vines.
It didn't take long to sow the beans. My husband, Joe, helped. Four hands are better than two are. A small project Joe's tired body could handle after a 16-hour-a-day workweek. Joe turned over the soil with a shovel and stapled wire to the fence boards. I was so excited, standing there holding the wire to keep it from springing back and slapping Joe in the face, I could have been in the Garden of Eden.
Since I didn't have aged manure, I threw potting mix into the upturned soil. (When you live 17 miles from town, you use whatever's in the shed.) I don't recommend using potting soil because it won't blend with dirt, at least most won't. But the cheap concoction that Lowe's employees' uses, does. In fact, I like it better than the higher-priced outdoor amendments that I've used in the past. The best way—the proper way—to prepare the soil is to work fertilizer in at least one month before planting. Sometimes you just have to do what you can, when you can. It all works out in the end.
I can't explain my excitement of sowing a seed or planting a tree except to say there's more to it than just getting close to nature. The creative action stirs my soul in the moment and for the future. On Dancing with the Stars, I recently heard it said that Pro Dancer Anna Trebunskaya knows how to bring about situations that will lead her to success. Perhaps this is why I enjoy planting so much. Success is right around the corner. I can't help feeling rich.
Yesterday, I received a bulb. Its species is unknown as it is one of many wrapped in a single silicon bag with a card in memory of my sister-in-law, who loved flowers.
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