That's a lot of work. We have weeds, quack grass and heavy clay soil every which way you look. Sugar isn't easily made of clay.
This day, which in practical terms was my last teaching day, dawns warm. Really warm. The storms have moved east and slowly most of the cloud cover followed.
Breakfast, a very early one, is on the porch. No sweater needed. Warm.
I set out to campus on rosie, despite the fact that I have to pick up boxes of treats for my very last ever Family Law class.
One more class after that and then the teaching day is over! Sure, there's work ahead. The summer will have chunks of it throughout (I know: for this I took a pay cut?). But the regularity of it will not be there. With the end of classes, I regain control of my time. Time to concentrate on the essentials, like -- the weather! A high of 87 today. 87!
People complain that it is too hot. How quickly we forget January, February, March!
Ed and I celebrate the end of my teaching semester. No, no party, no drinks downtown, no dinner out. We go to the Flower Factory where you can find just about any perennial that'll grow this side of the Mississippi.
Ed patiently waits while I drag a cart from one greenhouse to the next, picking out old favorites for the new flower beds we're creating.
The hot winds howl and turn daffodils into leaning towers of Pisa. But I persevere.
Back at the farmhouse, I do a celebratory supper of, well, our stuff. Salad. Market oyster mushrooms and scrambled eggs. Asparagus. Smoked salmon bits. tomato. Some ancient bagel for Ed. Our kind of meal.
And as it is still so light, so warm, so delightfully summerlike, we go right back outside to work -- lay chips for the new bed, and rototill the parts chipped over last year. For this, Ed takes out his baby tiller and we work long and hard to get it started. As the sun sets, I plow on.
...until it is too dark and I think that maybe I'm plowing under good rose bushes and budding coreopsis. Not quite like sugar, but still, the beds are tilled and nearly ready for planting.
