Sprung

There are many harbingers of spring. Yeah yeah, the robins, the crocus. For me the real sign of spring is finally getting out to the garden. First the marathon cleaning up of dog poop. Then the tackling of dried plants from last year that should have been removed during the fall clean up that never happened. I will inevitably decide I have to prune the roses NOW BEFORE ITS TOO LATE and get into that bubble where I just go for it, get scratched by evil rose thorns through my gloves while working fast to try and make sure neither the girls or the dogs need my attention or try to get through the rose barrier while I am stuffing thorny rose canes into a trash can and wondering why I never tipped the trash men over the holidays.

I usually need to reposition something big and hard to move. Today it was an arbor, which wasn't heavy, but big, sunk in the ground, and tethered down with dead vines. It also had a large rose climbing through it, which is what brought on the pruning. H is getting over a cold, her ears are stuffed up and she can't hear which is making things interesting. She yells everything for one thing.

H: "Whats THAT?"
me: "An arbor"
H: "CARDBOARD?
me "AN ARBOR"
H: "WHATS AN AR DOOR?"

This went on, loudly, forever. I don't know if H knows what an arbor is or not. I tried, and ended up with "An arbor is this big thing! This big thing is an arbor! Things grow on it!" She asked if the ar door made things curly, it had last years dried up tendrils from something on it. I had to stop there.

The girls watched me warily, knowing to stand back a bit. I can see them finding words for this when they get a little older. Oh great, there goes mom into the garden again. Today we worked on H's garden. Which is to be known from here on out as H and S's garden, as H shocked me yet again with her generosity toward her sister and volunteered to share her prized garden with S as S didn't have one yet. We planted seeds for peas, H mixed up a bunch of different varieties- I have no idea what we'll end up with. Seeds for salad greens, bok choy and brussel sprout plants. And pansies.

I said to H, as she was pulling plants out of their plastic pots, "be careful with the roots"
"WHAT?"
I repeated it.
"THE RULES? WHAT ARE THE RULES?"
"No, the ROOTS"
"Oh. BUT WHAT ARE THE GARDEN RULES?"
"There aren't any."
"WHAT?!"

It was great to be out digging in the dirt.