“I don’t know what’s wrong with the Kubota’s 4WD but it couldn’t get me to the upper garden, so I switched back to 2WD. Twenty bags of cedar mulch, ready for fairy paths. Normally I go with hemlock, but the store didn’t have any. This stuff is light, smells nice, the bags don’t weigh much. Dear Thuja. I’m glad circumstances tipped in your direction. So many other things tanked. Dropped my phone and broke it. Hit myself in the head with a tool. Had to dry out a new book, & several notebooks, cuz kitty knocked over a pint glass. Failed to communicate love at the right time, to the right people. Almost couldn’t determine who the right people were ... or can’t .. because this life is so confusing. Everyone deserves it, evidently, and that might include me. But I’m alone. And I feel the suffering of my friends, acutely. Which might have put me on edge. So that when I dug out the iris, and started to clean out around the astilbe, I suddenly, got spooked. When the long thing came out. My claw caught it easily, and at first it appeared to be a lost, organic torpedo. Possibly ready to detonate, but moist, some might say limp. I physically jumped. I hadn’t expected it. Nothing like this had ever come out of the garden before. Such a character had no place in my world, and yet ... here it was. I girded my loins (really?) and looked. An old corn cob, at best. An old corn cob eaten by a woodchuck and left to rot, at worst. I remembered the have-a-heart trap, set by the wall. Ah, yes. Long gone, but somehow still sharing his seed, I thought, as I tossed this carcass to the bucket. Take heart, oh gardener. Much have you endured. Waiting 15 minutes as a family of five in line before you ordered breakfast sandwiches, yet, you endured. Finding your day’s audio book inoperative due to a technical malfunction, yet, you endured. Unable to locate newspapers, to lay beneath your cedar mulch - yet - you endured. Carefully calculating the work you wished to accomplish, and the approximate number of children who were likely to be charmed, because all children intuitively love fairy paths, you pushed aside all pain, disappointment and worry. You limped, you strode, you slid, and nearly fell onto a slippery rock. You contemplated moss, and thorns, and felt a familiar distain and annoyance, when confronted with Sorbaria, and out of place ferns. The dogwood pruning you’d started weeks ago, unfortunately, was still, hardly done. Such a banner year, for growth. For example: the outsized arms of almost every hydrangea, somehow insulting, given all the years you’d put in more effort. Or back to the dogwood, and its 15 foot complex limbs, not easy to cart off or even disentangle, I’m afraid, requiring now a parlay of intelligence, loppers, or at the very least, an optimistic attitude! But, don’t let me go on. I’m sure everyone has the same issues, so my complaints are nothing special. When Sandy, who owns & runs her own bookstore and cafe, thanked me for dropping off CDs, I felt my world turn. I mean, my world. I can come home exhausted, from shoveling, raking, grabbing, yanking, primping, smoothing, tucking in, and revisioning landscape, to find that i’m still a musician. Imagine, still a guitar player, and people are still listening to hear which notes I’ll play.”
