Since my gardening work this year is on the ambitious side (so many new plantings to put in!), I decided that I simply cannot do it in my typical fashion of deciding what goes where once the plants arrive at the farmhouse. I have to plan ahead.
I'm not used to doing this. Sketching flower beds seems really weird. (And walking around the farmette with these sketches later, when the plants get here, will seem even weirder.) Still, given the volume of planting, it has to be done and what better day for filling out those flower field maps than a day that is cool, gray and unhurried.
(I take my work to the breakfast table, letting Ed sleep in. He'd been up way too late for a morning meal with me. Still, he hears me clang dishes and before the leisurely cup of coffee is finished, he is with me, groggy, but good company nonetheless.)
I do throw a look at the flower beds outside and I notice the first signs of trouble: emerging tulips, chomped down by -- oh, who can even tell! Deer? groundhogs? Rabbits? We've got them all. There's not much you can do about it except hope that there soon will be enough stuff growing elsewhere, so that these plant eaters will leave my flowers alone.
I put down my planning maps and notes by early afternoon. I'm not nearly done, though it strikes me how much pleasanter it is to actually work outside than to draw up the plans for working outside. Ed has always accused me of being excessively meticulous in my planning. When I travel, I know exactly where I will be sleeping each night. But it's not the process of planning that is attractive to me. I just don't want to leave the worry of deciding for later. So, too, in my gardens now, I don't want to feel the stress of making choices down the road. If you do it in advance, then the trip, whether in travel or in the garden, begins with a clear head and an open heart.
In the afternoon, I pick up Snowdrop at school. As always, I come super early, so that I can take my place toward the front of the very long line. She doesn't have to wait too long to run to my car.
A new school, with all new kids for her, in these new and unusual times. Everyone wonders when our lives will return to some semblance of prepandemic normal. Me, I keep wondering when this little girl will be able to play with a friend, at home or at school, in the way that she once did.
For now, I try to find crazy special things to do here at the farmette, even as she most likes to revert to her old faves.
This includes -- cold weather notwithstanding -- time outside.
Kids are resilient. She is resilient. I am grateful for that.
