In the Garden

I've been a pruning fool lately. My partner chipped a mountain of branches for me and my payback was to fill the bin for them way above the top, plus create more piles--caught short of being dispatched to the bin--when my daughter performed a necessary intervention. I was in a low sugar stupor when she found me and led me back inside. It happens every spring when I suddenly panic that the garden won't be "ready" in time--in time for what I do not know. It will take me a month or so to get back in the groove, but eventually I will have settled on a comfortable gardening uniform made up of various hats, a stained vest with pockets full of bits of old plastic, dirt, and broken irrigation parts, and old sneakers with grass seed crudely woven into the laces. I'll remember to drink plenty of liquids, take a break for something to eat before I become comatose, and dowse myself with sunscreen. I'll begin to move with more ease as I work through the stiffness that winter invited into my joints and muscles. But chances are my daughter will still find me at the end of the day lost in my thoughts, wandering through the garden stooping to pull at a plant that has chosen to make itself at home just in the exact spot where I do not want it to be. I'm eagerly anticipating weather that is warm enough to sit in the rain and weed. We all do outrageous things to accommodate our passion for gardening. My most extreme act for the love of gardening was to put up flood lights so we could continue gardening long after the sun set. What's your most extreme act in the name gardening?

Thank you to my daughter Ana for her "April Cat" drawing.