I’ve darn near given up on having a garden this year.  It is themiddleofApril for the love of Maude (as they say over at rants from mommyland).

The latest I’ve ever put in peas and spinach was April 5th.  We are well past that, in case you had not noticed.

This may turn out to be a tomato-okra-bean-only kind of summer.

And honestly, it’s a crying shame, because Farmer Boy spent the end of the fall and the entire winter, any time it was dry enough (and even if it was mostly frozen) working that garden with the push-plow just because he loves the dirt SO much.  My garden has never been better prepared or looked as well-cared-for as it does this spring.

I don’t even have any pansies in my flower pots yet!  For SHAME!

However, this sinus infection (yes, it has been officially determined as the cause of my recent lost week) is not very helpful in terms of motivation for outdoor work.  In fact, I shut the house and turned the AC on this week in order to keep the pollen out of the immediate vicinity (I forget this every spring and remember after my allergies make me completely miserable).  It has helped (along with the drugs).

But, in order to remind myself that I am farther ahead than last year, the flower beds I expanded and transplanted bulbs to look great, the kids have spent several days picking up all the stray sticks in the yard and hauling them to the burn pile with their cool riding mower/yard wagon, so things are mowable. (YES goshdarnit, spellcheck, I *know* that “mowable” is not a word!!!)

I’ll get to the outside work when I can get to it.  In the meantime the inside of my house is working pretty well, and though I dropped the ball on my Lenten cleaning as far as the garage, I have nearly completed the filing/office work I’d hoped to work on a little here and there through the season.  As Easter gets closer, I’m really looking forward to Farmer Boy’s first Communion on May Day.  He has been practicing in his religious ed. classes with the host and wine.  He told me the wine tastes (insert disgusted face) and the host is (insert so-so hand gesture).  Then he said it would taste different on his first Eucharist because it would really be Jesus then.

I explained that, actually, it would not.  He said, “well, it will *feel* different then, right?”  I told him that maybe it would, that for some people it feels different right away, but for others (like me) it took a while to really feel the Grace that entered my life because of eucharist.

It’s like planting bulbs.  After the initial work, you have only bare earth.  The next year, if you wait and keep the weeds out, you have green.  The next year, if you’ve been patient and taken care to pay attention to that place, you will have a flower.  Each year the bulb will propogate and fill more space with color and joy.  Things that are inherently good usually require an investment of time and attention and are often something we might overlook unless we are tuned in.  And, as always, the more work we put into it ourselves, the more we get from it.  The older I get, the more I find this to be true in so many ways.  It applies to my relationships (especially within my marriage), my home, cooking, exercising, taking a trip, reading a book, writing this blog.

It makes me feel old, yet satisfied and appreciative to see that I’m growing in wisdom and maturity. (Also I may have thrown up a little in my mouth when I said that.)