<tuesday may 20, 2003 - 12:34 p.m.>

Bad news - Emma has a cavity. (!)

<monday may 19, 2003 - 10:34 p.m. - Victoria Day>

I wrote this blog entry earlier today, in my trusty notebook... one of about four floating around for this purpose.

I am sitting in my garden in my favourite muskoka chair, one of a pair we received as a wedding gift.

They should be stained this year, but I am content with their bark brown colour, and the streaks which hint to their age and the fact that they are used with loving regularity.

The best part about muskoka chairs are the armrests. Whoever designed them knew full well that a place to rest a plate of food, and another for a beverage is of paramount importance.

On my left armrest, a fizzy no-name brand Orangina. Plenty of ice clinks in the glass. It is soothing to sip and look and think.

On my right armrest, my notebook and pen with a soft foamy RCMP figure on the top.

I am sitting in the dappled shade of a young maple. Its leaves are the colour of New Green, green like apples, green like jelly beans, green like limes. This is the kind of green that comes when the leaves burst freshly upon the scene in the first warm week of spring.

There is a small branch that ends near my shoulder. A leaf taps me on the arm with each breath of the wind.

My feet rest on a large toy ball. My knees are dirty, but there is good reason for this. I've been gardening for most of the day. The work is hard. I cleared a flower bed that is exposed to the full brunt of the sun.

I am dirty. I think I may even stink.

The sun burned my back as I bent over my spade, trowel and/or weed popper. I am a multi-tool gardener. I also lose track of them as I work. Mental note: wrap florescent orange safety tape around all handles for easy finding.

Second mental note: don't trust your children to apply sunscreen to any area of your body. You will burn. It will be uneven and blotchy.

There are a lot of stones in that flower bed. I pitched them into a bucket as I went along.

In some places I used the spade to dig small holes into the ground, this in order to pull out buried rocks, but also loosen the clay underneath. I consistently had a sense of deja vu, memories of digging for buried treasure surfaced with every stone I uncovered. Whenever the edge of the spade strikes anything, my first thought is still an excited one - Hey, I think I found something!

I accomplished a lot today. But most of this work had its beginnings yesterday, when Mary and I attacked it, weeding and planting and watering.

I started soaking Morning Glory seeds yesterday (the Heavenly Blue variety) and planted a bunch in a special spot outside the garden gate. I cleared it last week and shoveled in some sheep poop for good measure.

I turned the soil again today, secretly dreading that it had been discovered by the neighborhood cats and turned into a community litterbox.

The garden, although unkempt, overgrown, and lacking an overall gardening vision or aesthetic is so pretty that sometimes it just makes me want to cry.

My favourite parts of the garden include the following:

1. The shady back corner - home to our hostas and our ferns, as well as a mass of lily of the valley, lovely fragrant clean white bells standing upright between thick green leaves. Every year I pick a handful and put them on the windowsill. Nature has no better air freshener.

There is a shady spot right next to our patio for which I also have a fondness. Mary practically cleaned the whole thing of weeds and other undesirables. A couple favourites were unearthed in the process, including evening primrose and maltese cross, and something else which I really like but cannot remember the name of.

I planted a bleeding heart, as well as a couple varieties of coleus, adding shades of candy pink, white and green.

2. The herb garden. Secluded from the rest of the garden and sheltered from the worst of the elements, this little area gets sun for only part of the day. But this is good. Everything grows, nothing gets scorched.

Mint was the original tenant of this patch, and it took me a long time to tear it all out. I then pounded in some of plastic edging to prevent any that I missed from weaving its way back in again.

This year I decided to only plant herbs which I know I will use: mint (this time, in a pot) parsley, rosemary, and chives.

Also growing are some green onions (from Mary), lots of woody thyme, a bean (from Sarah for Mother's Day), and a gooseberry bush. We have yet to eat a single berry from it. This is the year I get serious about caterpillar infestations. Mark my words.

There is also a wild blackberry bush - thorny, skeletal, sprawling - which I cut back every year so it doesn't overtake the rest of the space.

It provides enough bounty to make it worth keeping. When the fruit is ripe, I reach carefully between the thorns to get the prize. Every year we get five or six berries from it, enough for a sweet mouthful, less if you're good enough to share.

3. Peony row. This area is in dire need of work, but the peonies themselves are rich, wide, strong flowers on hearty stems. There are two varieties here, white and a deep purple. Every year there are so many flowers I can cut to my heart's content and fill every vase and container I own.

A bunch of these on any household surface just scream "HELLO!" and perhaps "I AM YOURS!" They are romantic blooms in their own right, I can't figure out just how romantic these flowers are. In other words, what is their romance quotient? They can't compare to the rose, but they certainly betray some admiration, certainly respect, honesty and friendship.

But when it rains they are pulverized. This happened last year before I could truly enjoy them... I walk out to see their heavy heads lying prostrate on the ground, brown rotting petals littering the wet flagstone.

4. The wilderness by the compost. I have an attachment to the composter. We have a relationship. I feed it, it makes me good dirt. This makes me very happy. I love the whole process. You put in a few banana peels and kitchen veggie bits and voila, with a few worms and some aerobic (or is it anaerobic?) bacteria you get amazing soil.

The area around it is one that we never bother with. There is enough garden to worry about. It's pretty wild back there. It's filled with little maple trees. In the spring and fall we tear them out by the hundreds. (I should sell the seedlings at a garage sale or something, I could make a fortune.)

This area is prettiest in the Spring, when everything is small and new. Later in the year it is taken over by heliopsis. They create their own forest and overshadow the maples, who are stunted by the lack of sun.

There is a sumac in the back corner, but for the past few years it hasn't done very well. It is sick or dying. Mark threatens to cut it down every year but I don't want to part with it.

It's a very shady corner of the yard. The sunlight is mostly blocked by full-grown maples and a lilac hedge that separates us from our neighbor and her yappy yap dog.

The lilac flowers along that row are a light purple colour, a pleasant contrast to our other lilac tree in the backyard. Its blooms are a darker purple. I don't think I've ever seen one like it before.

Gardening still to do:

• plant clematis
• buy and install new trellises (trelli? I need three.)
• buy proper peony stakes
• clear peony row and remove the grass, replace with something low and creeping
• plant something behind the hostas (astilbe?)
• clear the bed under the lilac
• plan and plant in sunny bed
• plan the plant in the rock garden
• buy a circulating bird bath

Anyway, I've avoided a big topic with all this gardening talk. Emma had her birthday party on Saturday. I have photos and stories to tell, but have run out of time for today. So for now you're going to have to wait until I can pull it all together. :)

Cheers,

andrea