Spring Stream of Consciousness

Boy, the blog post was the furthest from my radar this week, and coming into this morning I looked at my to-do list and saw “Blog Post” and realized, I got nothing. So we’re going to go with a stream of consciousness.

I don’t know about where you are, but here in the Pacific Northwest, we’re going through the throes of spring madness. I got all excited about planting our garden. We had been waiting and waiting to even fill our new garden beds with soil because “it’s still winter” then all the sudden the trees are blooming, it’s 60 degrees out during the day, and people are talking about planting peas. And here we are with no soil, even. So while the weather was nice for a few days, we brought in four pickup loads of soil from Lane Forest Products, our local go-to for yard and garden products, and filled up nine raised beds and three old truck tires—shoot, I just realized I never bought the beans! We put in peas, but no beans, darn it! Told you this was stream of consciousness. Anyway, now I’ve also planted a beet (beat) box, a ton of onions, and started a bunch of plant seeds under a grow house. There’s even some tiny lettuce plants in there already.

I’m super excited, but I’m also very nervous. It’s been over 5 years since I’ve had a garden, and while I was never close to being an expert, I’m afraid I’ve forgotten most of what I knew about when to start plants, and spacing, and transplanting...all that good stuff. Hubby and I recognized that this year is going to be just a crap shoot as to whether we succeed or fail, but we’re hoping to have a good supply of our own green groceries. I plan to try my hand at canning some stuff, too.

As nervous as I am, I very much enjoy gardening. It is fun to get my hands dirty, and once things start peeking out of the ground, it becomes this satisfying miracle to nurture the plants and see them through to harvest. It’s still really early for it. March has really decided to come in like a lion this year. The temps have dipped, and the rain keeps falling, rain keeps falling down, down... (Hey hey hey hey!) (There’s the stream again, taking me down with Simple Minds...)

We still have much to do in the yard, too. We’re going to put in a small blueberry hedge, and some fruit trees, if we can find dwarf stock. Gotta make the best use we can out of our tiny lot. About an 8th of the yard still needs to be leveled out, and walk-on bark put down, and then (at last!) we’ll be able to gravel the driveway, which I can’t wait to do. (No more mud and sand getting tracked into the house!) But all of that depends upon the rain stopping long enough to dig in the dirt without creating a mud pie. Which we already did, once. What a mess that was! Then we can move the sheds around to their permanent homes, and tear down the last of the old shed. Oh, and by the time things dry out, we’ll want to have the well back up and running. That will be an advantage over paying for city water to water the garden.

So much to do, but you know what, I’m super glad to be home and working on it this year. This is the first summer since 2010 that we will be home, and I am totally psyched for it. I always got twitchy on the truck, wishing my hands were getting dirty with soil rather than grease and carbon soot and whatever else we got out hands into while loading and unloading the trailer.

What do you do in the spring? What are your plans for summer?

On Walking Someone Else's Dog

I mentioned earlier that my mom was going to have knee replacement surgery, and I was going to be her caregiver. The surgery was two weeks ago today, and Mom is doing great. Not up and running marathons, like she seems to think she ought to be able to do by now, but for a 78-year-old, she is a rock star.

One of my easiest duties as caregiver is to take Mom’s dog for a walk, twice a day. We’re not sure what breed she is—she looks like a Golden Retriever, but in miniature—but she has a sweet disposition and has been a great companion for Mom. She is peculiar in one respect: she won’t do her business in the yard, and so she must be walked. This has been great for making sure Mom gets her exercise, and giving her reasons to socialize with the neighbors. The downside is that Ada (the dog) must go twice a day, every day, rain or shine. At ungodly hours for a night owl like me.

I tend to stay up well past midnight writing or proofreading, and left to my own devices, I get up around 8:30 or so. But Ada wants to be fed at 7 and walked by 8 at the latest. Mom has been able to feed her, but I’ve barely been able to drag my butt out of bed to get out the door by 8. I walk her as late as possible in the evenings, but this time of year it has still been over 12 hours since she’s been out, so I do feel for her, and I try.

One interesting thing about walking someone else’s dog is the people I meet.

Now, Ada is not always friendly with every dog she meets, so I never assume the pug or yorkie or hound coming up on us is a friend. Most times they pass without incident. But whether or not the dogs are friendly, almost everyone we come across knows my mom. And they ask me how she is, where she is, and how the surgery went. It is gratifying that so many people know and care about Mom, and tell me to tell her that “Winsow’s mom says hello,” or “Dakota and I are praying for her.” (We all seem to remember the dog’s name before the people’s names.)

Since I am not a morning person, I also look for the blessings in getting up so early, and I find it very peaceful to walk in the quiet of the morning. Mom lives near a sweet little park that features lovely magnolia trees, which are in bloom right now. Everything changes so much this time of year. I can walk by a bare tree in the morning and by the afternoon the leaf buds will be pushing, and the next morning it will be leafed out. A magnolia will be full of fuzzy pods one trip, then 11 hours later they will be open and displaying beautiful blooms. Dewdrops and birdsong in the morning, sunset colors in the evening. Clouds as a backdrop, blue sky, green green grass. It is all splendid, all glorious, and seemingly all mine. It is a blessed escape from the cares of the world, a timeless bubble impervious to the tragedy, anger, politics, and madness that seem to be crashing against the rocks of reality, driving me to distraction when I let it.

We anticipate the doctor will tell us tomorrow that Mom doesn’t need live-in care any longer, and I will be able to go home, just stopping in every couple days to help her do the things she can’t do herself. The dog walks will pass on to helpful neighbors, and I will get to sleep in again. At least until I get back on the truck next month.

I have to confess, part of me will miss the daily walks with Ada. But I do miss my own bed, and my lazy mornings.