Potato!

Today was an odd weather day.  It only got to about 67 degrees all day and felt like it was fixing to pucker up and rain most of the day.  I went to the Y around noon to work out on the machines and it sprinkled a bit as I left home and again on my drive back but never really got it together, rain-wise.

When I went out to unplug the fountain I wandered over to see if my new lettuces were still surviving(they are) and was surprised and please to see that one of the potatoes has sprouted.  Woohoo!

For the rest of the afternoon I sat on the couch listening to music and finishing the second leaf & butterfly, then sewing them together with the chrysalis.  I did a much better job of embroidering the veins on the leaf.  Of course, you can't really see because the butterfly is in the way but, trust me, it's better.  I dredged up the stitching lessons that Grandma Angermeier gave me when I was about 8 years old and made a much better job of it.  I have a vivid memory of sitting on the gray step stool in her kitchen with a little wooden embroidery hoop that she'd put a scrap of an old white sheet into after drawing a snowman on it with a pencil.  She threaded a needle for me and showed me how to do the outline stitch, then she got busy making supper and would step over to see how I was doing and correct my mistakes and too-big stitches.


9 June--Barbara Malcolm, Horizon.

             An hour later I was on my way home with the trunk and backseat of my car full of plants.  I had hardy perennials since it was so late in the year.  And I had a list from Mr. Baker of the bulbs he thought I should plant before the first frost.  When I thought of the high-handed way he’d put plants on a cart, telling me what I should buy instead of asking what I liked, I decided that in the future I’d avoid Mr. Abel Baker at all costs.  I buried one bossy man, I told myself, and I’m not going to spend any time with another one.

             My irritation with the garden center man gave me extra energy when I went out to dig up and rearrange plants.  I found an old clothesline, as he’d suggested, to lay on the ground and figure out how I wanted to make the border.  Clara stopped by and when she saw what I was doing, picked up a trowel and lent a hand.  She dug out the plants to be moved while I continued to dig out the new border.

“Clara, have you ever seen that Abel Baker at the garden center?” I said to the top of her head as she loosened the soil around a peony plant.

“Can’t say I have.  Who is he?”

“He writes the “Dirty Hands” column in the paper.  I bumped into him over there today and he was completely obnoxious.”

“What do you mean?”  She sat back on her heels and looked up at me.  “Was he rude?  Didn’t he help you?”

“Help me?  First, he acted as if he was the only one on earth who had ever gardened.  And then he took over, throwing plants at me as if I were his student, and a not very bright one at that, pontificating about his gardening knowledge.  He actually said ‘vast horticultural experience.’  Can you believe it?”

Clara picked up the cultivator, leaned forward, and kept on working.  She kept her eyes on the dirt as she spoke, trying not to let me see her face.  “No, I can’t.  What else?  I know there’s more.”

“Are you smiling?”  I saw her back shaking and knew the truth.  “You’re laughing, aren’t you?”

She sat back on her heels and her face was red from the effort to keep her laughter from bursting out.  “I’m sorry, Gail.”  A laugh bubbled out.  “I know you’re mad but I sure would have liked to be there to see him.”  She tipped to the side and sat on the grass with her wrists on her knees and her smiling face shining up at me.

The more I thought about it the angrier I got, the harder I dug, and my words came out in little bursts.  “Clara, he was so patronizing I could barely be civil to the man.  As I was loading the car, he came out with a list, a list, of bulbs he thought I should buy the next time I stopped in.  You’d better believe if I do go in there again, I will avoid Mr. Abel Baker at all costs.”  I stabbed my shovel into the ground so hard I had to rock it to pull it out.

Clara tried to change the subject by complimenting me on my choice of plants and saying that the flowerbeds would be beautiful next spring.  But I couldn’t stop talking about what a creep Abel Baker had been.

The day was fading as we got the last of the new plants in the ground.  “Thanks for all your help, Clara.”  I rubbed my gloved hand across the shovel to clean off the soil.  “I’ll finish up moving these other plants tomorrow.”

As we stood back to admire our work, Clara said, “It was a good idea to use clothesline to mark the new edges.”

          “Well, that was the one good idea Mr. Baker gave me.  I’ll give him that,” I said as I surveyed my new, curvy flowerbeds.  “But I’ll be damned if I’m listening to one more word that jerk has to say.”

           Clara just laughed as she dusted her knees, “I’d better get home and make Hank’s supper.  He’s been real busy at the feed store and you know if I have food ready when he gets home he’s in a better mood.  See you.” 

That evening I was tempted to write on the porch slat, “Abel Baker is an opinionated jerk,” but contented myself with, “Redid the flowerbeds.”  It was a two-glasses-of-wine day.

CG the landscaper is supposed to be back with more help tomorrow to continue working on the retaining wall.  I'll be glad when the pallets of blocks are off the front lawn and the wall is finished so I can mow.  I'm not going to even try mowing until the job is done since I'd have to dodge around the pallets, the skid steer, and piles of gravel.  Not worth it.
--Barbara