Monthly Archives: March 2016

It’s not yet summer.

I’d thought we were done with spring. Weeks hitting 80 and nights no longer cooling. Broccoli bolting and tomatoes past ready.

This week cooled again. Highs in the 60s, lows in the 40s, and everyone out soaking in the final days before the heat truly takes hold.

Each evening I’d lay on a blanket ten feet from the back door while DH or his amazing mother made dinner. Our daughter would ask me to find bugs, so we’d peer through the grass for ants and pill bugs (or rollie pollies, or as she calls them “doodle buhgs.”)

Today marks the last day of bed rest. She and I are outside examining pebbles and spilling water bottles. DH is planting tomatoes (24 transplants this year, and 14 of them kept their labels!)

“The volunteer dill is doing its job,” he announces. He comes over to help me up and the nearly-four of us trek to the dill. Sure enough.

Hello there, handsome.

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Closing the fifth day.

“Hope you don’t feel like I think you’re doing nothing. You’re doing important work.”

Exactly what I needed to hear today.

I find myself with conscious gratitude surfacing more and more as bed rest continues. Is it the slowing down that allows room for it to grow? Is it the perspective shift front and center bringing gratitude into focus more clearly?

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I’m grateful for mother daughter strawberry picnics on blankets with airplanes flying overhead.

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I’m thankful for an over-extended partner extending himself even further to keep us all going, garden included.

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I’m grateful for our small village who wash dishes or do “splash splash” (bath time) or just sit and talk politics and nonsense with me.

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I’m grateful for fresh muffins made while I sleep in and for the financial ability to stomach a pretty decent property tax hike.

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I’m grateful for “smoo” (smooth) and “buhpee” (bumpy) pebbles, and the daughter that carries them to my pillow and blanket fort to tell me about them.

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And I’m grateful that for another day, our little Blueberry is still growing safe and sound in my belly.

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Sideways shift.

My main duty these days is laying on my side and not doing things. At least two more weeks of cooking are ideal and my body and this baby appear to be plotting their own plan.

A slow soak of sunshine is necessary to keep the stir-crazies at bay, during which I plot my tender snail’s pace loop about the gardens.

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Somethings are larger than they appear…

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And sometimes I’m glad I have more weeds.

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The carrots are looking more carroty.

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The garlic are a tangled tussle.

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This leek came up all on its own. Having never successfully sown leeks, I can only marvel at its persistence in overcoming my interference.

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A kind neighbor gifted us some fig twigs.

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And in their ancient wisdom (the seeds are well over five years old and have yet to survive my best attempts) the Alyssum has joined the party.

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Swimming in sky water.

It’s been raining for days. Thunder in the night that gasps me awake if I’m lucky enough to be asleep. Storms that water fond memories of childhood sleep undisturbed by earthquakes and dynamite.

The earth, parched in winter as it often is here, gulps down each cloudfull before the bursting winds carry off the empty buckets above and usher in the next round.

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I stole a few soaked moments this morning while my coffee steeped to puncture holes in the bottom of the tomato cups and rescue the pepper pots from the overflowing trays.

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The drops paused long enough this evening for a few fleeting shots of the drenched promises of future garden spoils.

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Here’s hoping for perfect shoveling weather coming soon, as a “biiiiiiig druck” (we have quite the budding machinery expert in the house) will be dropping four yards of compost tomorrow for my most lovely partner in life to dole out to the remaining empty beds.