It's a wet landscape out there. A wet and weedy landscape. On my morning walk I can't help but notice the hundreds, nay thousands of new weed heads. I no longer dig out roots, I snip off anything above the ground, trying to take out as much as I can. Of course, I dont even make a dent. In these new flower beds, the baby plants take up no space at all and so the weeds have plenty of opportunity to come back and taunt me. But I cannot give in. I've worked too hard to establish these beds. I have to persevere. Bend down and pluck, a million times each day.
Most flowers look refreshed after the rain. And some bend their blooming heads under the weight of the added moisture. It's especially beautiful to watch the lilac curve its flower heads. A final flush of purple color, a final whiff of a heavenly fragrance.
(Speaking of purple...)
Breakfast, now routinely outside. It's definitely warm enough.
And afterwards we take stock. We have trees to plant, sure, but I'm the landscape planner here (Ed prefers it that way) and I do not see many sunny spaces left for the trees we have left. Walnuts, for example, love sunshine. We walk the new forest lands and look at the box elders that have created so much shade.
I suppose I can take those four trees down... This from Ed.
I know it seems odd -- take down mature trees in order to plant babies which may or may not take hold, but box elders are like cotton candy: they spin out of control quickly and their life span is short. They fall down at inconvenient times and in inconvenient places. We have dozens of them and apart from the fact that they do give some shade and protection from the winds that blow across the upper midwest, they really are as big a nuisance as creeping charlie. Like noxious weeds, they crowd out everything. I am glad, therefore, that Ed has agreed to take down a box elder grove that's growing right in the middle of our baby forest, but it does mean that we'll have to slow down our planting. We put the remaining trees in the refrigerator and turn to other catch-up chores: Ed needs to lay chips on top of the fabric that surround the new saplings. And I offer to finish planting the tomatoes.
I work in the field taking in that wonderful aroma of tomato plants, digging and planting, digging and planting one after the next until the last thirty-two are in the ground. Will they produce this year? Last year the deer ate 95% of our crop. They may have shared a little with the groundhog -- we're not sure about that, but by season's end we had nothing left. This year we're trying our magic pepper concoction that seemed to work well at fending off the groundhogs and bunny rabbits from my perennials. We'll see how effective it is on tomato plants!
In the afternoon we haul some furniture that Ed put together to my mom's place. We'll still have to help her with wall hangings, but at least in terms of moving stuff in -- we're done.
The day's not over! I have my very last flower order to pick up from the Flower Factory. They're getting rid of all their day lilies and so they're selling off some pretty nice, mature plants. Yes, there is always room in the flower fields for more lilies!
Lunch? Close to 5 p.m. I know -- why not just call it dinner? (Because it's almond butter on toast, with jam. Definitely not dinner food.)
And still we're not done! Ed takes out his power saw...
... and I take some walnut twigs for planting. We work until our enthusiasm for being outdoors sags and the idea of dinner sounds so good! But it's late and we are both tired. Want to see if we can get pizza delivered? That's Ed's idea. Remarkable in that the two of us have never to my recollection had a pizza delivered. Nor is there a pizza place nearby. We do live in the country!
But we call an Italian Restaurant and of course these days everyone does take out and yes, they deliver if you're within five miles, and sure enough, if you take the shortest set of roads, we fit!
I think about all that we are planting this year -- all those flowers, the tomatoes, the trees. What a grand leap of faith! A belief that we can do this, despite hiccups, despite the labor, despite all that can still go wrong. We never think in those terms. Think of all that can go right! -- that's what pushes us forward.
(All together now...)
People who grow things are, without a doubt, the world's greatest optimists.
