Saturday, January 29th was a particularly pleasant 76 degrees (F) for the end of 2011's first month. As I drove home from Taylor's Rentals back up Garland's First Street, the radio coincidentally offered up some old words from John Prine; he gave his advice on life as he sang these words:
Blow up your TV,
Throw away your paper,
Move to the country, build you a home,
Plant a little garden,
Eat a lot of peaches,
and try to find Jesus - on your own.
As noted earlier [Celebration in the Temple], Sue spent a wad of her birthday gift money on plants and seeds and she was raring to put those seeds, tubers, rhizomes and pots into the ground along with all of the hope in the world for a fabulous Spring and Summer garden. Well, the start of Saturday morning, I was found lazily flipping through the paper, when she reminded me we were burning daylight. It was time to take John Prine's advice (at least some of it); we'll start with throw away the paper and plant a little garden.
It was time to go see Bud at Taylor's Rentals, because Bud had several rototillers in his side shed that he was happy to rent to us for the day. We loaded the largest one that would fit into the back of our SUV and headed home to commence digging. I set the choke, positioned the machine in the side yard, pinned the wheels up out of the way and dropped the drag bar down a couple of notches so it could find purchase in the blackland prairie soil that is to be Sue's garden patch between the driveway and the neighbor's fence. I pulled the starter cord, engaged the clutch and those tines, like goblin fingers, began to rip into the moist, black-clay earth. Sue was all smiles as she took the controls and began to merrily manage the magnificent mulch munching machine across the 10' x 40' plot.
The newly busted sod was treated with bags of cotton seed mulch in hopes of making the clumpy clay a bit more friable and root-friendly. After several hours of power plowing, the tines were rinsed and the machine was loaded to make a return trip to see Bud at the tool rental store. I pulled around back of Taylor's and went inside to finish the paper work. Bud Jr. was now at the desk, and he ask, "How did the machine run? Give you any problems?"
I said, "Well, my wife actually did most of the work with your rototiller, but she seemed to be pleased with its performance, she didn't mention any problems."
"Ahhh, you've got a wife like that." Replied Bud Jr., with an approving grin.
That Saturday afternoon, peas and onions were planted. Soon to come, asparagus, tomatoes, bell peppers, lemon cucumber, some variety of melon, possibly spinach and blue corn and a peony for the joy of color. The remainder of the planting has been held at bay after consulting the forecast. As pleasant as last weekend was in the opening paragraph here; today (Tuesday, February 1st - 3 days later) the newly tilled garden sits beneath one-half inch of ice, sleet and frozen rain. Tonight's low will be 12 degrees (F), but the garden is insulated by a layer of oak leaves, a gift from our neighbor's trees, transported from our front yard to the sideyard garden plot.
Meanwhile, tonight we sit by the fireside, warming our now recovering "garden muscles", while the flowering pots of cyclomens and lobelia watch anxiously out the breakfast nook window, awaiting their turn to put roots into real dirt. In Texas they say, "If you don't like the weather, give it 5 minutes." It will be hot and humid before we know it, and we know that the weeds are already planning to put up shoots come next Saturday.
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