A gardener

I've always meant to garden. Everywhere we've lived I've thought it would be such a good idea.
In Phoenix we even went far enough as to buy plants and get them planted...it lasted right up until Francis (ah...Francis, I miss him, we don't talk about Francis nearly enough on this blog ) Anyway it lasted right up until Francis dug up all the plants and rolled in the garlic. (In case you weren't sure before now, yes Francis is a dog).

Anyway, all my one gardening attempt was a failure. But today Esme and I spent four hours out in the garden!
It was great...I've definitely been putting this chore off, we bought plants over a month and a half ago but it wasn't warm enough here to plant them until well after I broke my ankle. And now with a house to organize, crutches, and weeds to pull before the planting could happen. Getting those plants in the ground was nowhere near the top of my list.

After all my hours sitting in the dirt I have to say one positive thing for this broken ankle situation, it is the best motivator I've ever had for getting a job completely done. There is no way I would have planted all the things I did today had I been in my normal shape. By about halfway through my back was aching, one of my hair rubber bands broke, the bugs were insanely annoying, and there were still a million weeds, literally a million.

But I was stuck! once you get down...especially into a place like a messy garden, on crutches. You. Are. Down. My hands were a mess, I was not dragging my sweaty, mud streaked self anywhere I didn't have to, I was getting the job done. My pig tails turned into a ponytail, a few bugs lost their lives, I had almost no concern about the mud puddles Esme was creating in certain parts of the garden, I was sticking it out until I was done!

As I placed the last Basil plant into an edge of the garden where it would be easy to retrieve for future sandwiches, pesto, salads (yum...the possibilities). I called to Esme for help getting things cleaned up. She came running over and said "hey mom, do you want me to bring you the last box?"

"The what?"  I turned my body to see one last box of plants I had forgotten sitting all alone on the picnic table...Thank God my landlord had offered to help with any of the planting if I needed it because I can proudly say four hours is enough and done is done! Those plants can wait!!

But I do feel so proud of what we created today. We got done in the garden at five and had dinner guests coming at six so I have to apologize that there are no pictures tonight. I just wanted to share my pride and accomplishment, and joy at having a motivator to help me see a project through (well, mostly anyway).

I do promise some pictures tomorrow, of both the garden and hopefully I can capture Esme's choice of gardening attire as it is something everyone could learn from. I hope you all sleep as well as we're going to!