The Beginnings of a Plot

My spine and back muscles have a message for you, Mount Vernon: When contemplating joining a gym, do NOT decide that moving 1200 pounds of topsoil is a better idea.

Actually, since I’m having a martyrdom moment this evening, it’s actually more like 1200 pounds of topsoil, 240 pounds of soil amendment, and 300 pounds of compost (also known colloquially as “doo-doo”). I moved all those bags twice in their entirety, and half of it all again before the lovely gentlemen at my local Big Box hardware store came to the rescue of my back and me (if not the shocks on my poor aging Ford). So we’re talkin’ 2,610 pounds of dirt (and poop, lest we forget) that I moved today for the benefit of our own wee tiny homestead. All I can say is, if the deer think they’re getting much of what grows here this season, I’m thinkin’ it’s a great year to add venison to our diet.

My husband and I have been dreaming of having a garden since before we purchased our first home together here in Sulgrave Manor 2 years ago this August, but this is the first season we were able to wrestle that dream down from the clouds and into the north side of our yard for fruition. The past weeks have been a flurry of lumber purchases, tool purchases (I am in deep smit with my DeWalt drill, scored on sale at Amazon, for instance, whose name may or may not be "My Precious"), plant purchases, and an episode with a rented tiller that left both my husband and me essentially crippled for nearly a week.

And while the dreams have always been sweet, and perhaps softly filtered so as to avoid the whole bit about the poo, in reality gardening is a hard, sweaty, achingly good workout that conveniently doubles as a kind of therapy. There is something really wonderful about coming home from work in the city to the sight of a sea of green leaves, my family out in the yard instead of in front of the TV, and the sounds of the birds and other fauna that seem to abound around our half-a-Green-Acre. 

Some fauna, like the wee Northern Brown Snake (thanks Flickr for being all-seeing, all-knowing!), are perhaps a bit less soothing than others.

Maybe I won’t need that gym membership quite yet(My flight to the opposite end of the yard from that little guy was certainly excellent cardio).

What’s growing (or slithering) in your garden this season?