That’s not true at all.
Two things are true: 1) I am not feeling at all contrary; and 2) My garden grows quite well, thank you.
My new yard is amazing. When we moved in last month it was green and lush. Then a few days of rain turned it to green, lush and long. The grass had grown a foot. Now comes along two scorchers, and the green grass is golden. On Wednesday I worked out there with Camille, Mike and the weed whacker until I had to leave for a job interview. When I came back the whacking job was complete. (And the dishes were done and the bathroom was cleaned. But that’s another story that has nothing to do with this post at all.) Where once stood waving green stalks of grass now lay golden hay.
Then yesterday I was up with the sun weeding the garden beds and doing some planting. The beds were left with the remnants of a winter garden. Quite disheveled but holding the secret of a beloved plot.
Today I need to go online and research the harvesting of overgrown winter crops. I’ve personally never had a winter garden and know very little about these vegetables. While I did trim off the dead leaves and the flowering shoots I’m not sure if I need to pull them up all together or if they will produce again. I see broccoli, cauliflower, beets, parsnips. Right now I saved the seedpods in little envelopes marked with their names. I’m not sure what will come next.
These artichokes we'll harvest and cook this morning in just a little bit to serve with Zak's birthday brunch (with some lemon zested mayonaise. :)
I also planted a “salsa garden”, an idea I got from dear friends when we lived in Ashland. Every year at harvest time we’d gather and collect the crop and together peel chop and dice tomatoes, peppers, cilantro and onions, sometimes a little corn, into big bubbling vats of salsa.
But my favorite part of my new yard has to be the trees and grapevines. Apricot, plum, apple, fig, and (as I have been told) 75 year old grapevines that produce the sweetest, juiciest table grapes ever! I’ll have to let you know about that one. And the huge boulders through out the yard. And the quiet. And the way the sun falls upon it golden in the morning and vermillion at dusk.
And so life takes me home again, to a place not far from the other. And I work to fill up each day with a little bit of happiness, as I trudge through the land of job scarcity. Even for me who has never in my life had difficulty finding work that I love. Oh, I know it's out there, they are out there, that job, those children who are calling to me for my care. But it's so hard to live unemployed. So hard.
