I Dig It

Hey there!  It's me.  Again.  Squeezing in just under the midnight wire.  Pretty slick, huh?

Don't blink or you'll miss what's left of this day.  Three minutes and counting.  I'm nothing if not consistent in my habitual behavior.  There I am, posing for the one of two pictures out of two hundred that I snapped off today during the "Down The Garden Path" tour in Nashville, Tennessee to sponsor research and recovery for lupus.  (Visit Lupus Foundation of America to find out more.)  There's my touring partner of several years and still going strong, my mother, standing in the opening of the garden wall and gate I have picked for my baby brother to lay and trowel for me.  I will inform him this very week.  If ever you have the chance to meander through the yards and grounds -- even back porches, patios, and pools -- of perfect strangers and toss a few bucks into a 'cause bucket,' GO FOR IT!  The experience is inspiring and wholly entertaining.  And the owners are generous, as any good gardener worth his or her salt is: they share their passion to spread the message.

My own back yard is a work in progress.  A collection of successes and failures and in-betweens.  The Japanese Painted Fern beneath the shade of our century-plus old elm tree infuses me with calm and delight each time I set my eye on it.  Last year, it just about broke my heart when my overly ambitious son backed the riding lawnmower over the plant and rendered it practically unrecognizable.  I did forgive him but just!

My life is full.  That may be a classic understatement.  But each time I dare to set foot on one of these adventures in gardening, my spring fever heats up and my green thumb begins to sprout!  From shovel to soil, from compost to clematis, from rock to robin, each and every element of the natural world from which emerge flora and fauna stirs my soul.  Literally.  To toil in the elements and witness the reward of vine, leaf, and fruit, year in and year out, is a gift I never tire in receiving. 

Perhaps, once the kids are all off to college, and my first book or two is written and selling well, and people in need tire of my brand of love and help, I will discover a hidden deposit of time.  If so, my voice mail will perpetually inform all callers that I'm out back . . .

. . . finally painting the planter's table; incorporating those bricks into the bed for the climbing hydrangea; building those raised herb beds I've always yearned for; relocating my array of shade-loving hydrangeas; taking a chisel to my pile of stones and creating a few yard sculptures; designing a small water feature; commandeering my brother as he engineers the brick walls of my secret prayer garden; and, standing back and absorbing the beauty and the love of one of my favorite passions. 

You are invited.