Saturday - 29th

We are two people, stuck in a very normal day, with very abnormal thoughts and conversations. I mean, everything about this Saturday is wonderfully predictable! There is morning sunshine...






I clean the farmhouse, we eat breakfast in a leisurely way...






Call it any-Saturday.

The weather stays pleasantly hospitable to garden work and so I spend the morning digging in the new path. As always, the cheepers get in my way. As always, I curse them, but they know and I know that I don't really mean it.






Ed works on clearing honey suckle at the periphery of the farmette lands. He's kept it nicely under control. Without that effort, much of the uncultivated land would be lost to this invasive shrub.

And still, we're spinning on a different orbit. From the minute we wake up, our thoughts go to the news of the day. We read different articles and share information. We talk about our supplies -- what should be replenished this week and how this should happen. I use different words to express normal concerns: it's not "oh, I should check in with the dentist this week," but rather "oh, I will do anything to avoid having to check in with the dentist this week."

As always, Ed will be on Zoom chats or email exchanges with the machining company that's working hard to stay afloat, despite the fact that most everyone is working from home. Me, I dig, clean, weed, cook.

In hard work, there is relief. Sometimes you can forget about the news of the day. Your thoughts stray to roots you're pulling up (what the heck are these?) and to planting schemes and diagrams (can I maybe fit in a new day lily here?).

Inevitably though, the uniqueness of this planting season creeps in. In other years I'd be planning a visit to the Flower Factory -- my go-to perennial supplier that has been filling my flower beds for over thirty years. It is in fact in its last year of business. The owners wanted to retire this fall. As a parting gift they have this sudden chaos. Selling and buying flowers has never been harder.






Too, in normal times, I fill flower tubs with annuals in April. Purchased from a local nursery. Ed suggested I use seeds this year, but this would put me severely behind. To have flowers by mid spring, seeds should have been planted indoors in February. We haven't done that, nor do we have the proper light for this. Old lamps are already in use to help our tomatoes do their thing.





And still, it's such a normal day! In the afternoon, I collect every ancient packet of flower seeds (Ed never throws out half used packets) and I take them to last year's tomato bed. The thought is to dump them there and see what happens. But I hadn't expected the old bed to be overgrown with dandelions and creeping charlie. The cheepers and I spend a productive hour (or two) digging up stuff, even as the clouds have long taken over our once blue skies and I swear there is an occasional gust of rain falling on us all.

It's your classic super productive gardening day! How I love spring... The fresh starts, the energy, the magical infusion of color...  I scrub my hands, for once because they're dirty, visibly dirty as opposed to secretly covered with evil stuff, I think how a bit of luck could be of use to a lot of people these days.

Dinner? Well, not especially exciting. I have a half a bag of shrimp, I have some frozen veggies. Together, along with some fish sauce, soy sauce and maybe a splatter of something else and a shake of a spice, they will make a fine stir fry.

A quiet evening. Just like always! How I hope it is that way for you as well...

With love.