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Spring is almost here. Spring is just around
the corner.
I don't care what that groundhog over
in
Pennsylvania is supposed to have done
this
morning.
I grew up and lived for most of my
life in
Upstate New York. When we heard "you're
going to have six more weeks of winter"
our reaction was always "Oh wow!
Only
six more weeks of winter!" Winter is milder and spring comes earlier
here along the Rhode Island coast than it
did deep in New York State. Oh yeah, sure,
we can still get a huge blizzard in February
or March... but spring is inexorably on its
way. Back in Binghamton, NY I can recall
April snowstorms that dumped more than a
foot of wet heavy snow... heck, I can remember
a snow storm in May (okay, so it was only
an inch and it was gone by noon, but nevertheless
it was snow in May)...but I know that spring
is on its way!
Besides, the seed and plant catalogs
started
arriving a couple of weeks ago. Three
cheers
for Piedmont Plants and Miller's Nursery
and Burpee Seeds.
Nancy has become the family gardener
and
landscaper. For years I was the person
who
mowed and watered and raked the lawn.
(Oh,
okay, when we lived in Binghamton she
would
sometimes mow the front lawn -- it
was a
postage stamp, less than forty feet
by twenty
feet -- but she used to joke that people
would see her doing that and assume
that
she did it all *grin*)... I trimmed
the hedges,
I planted and pruned the roses, I planted
the bulbs, I planted the annuals, I
planted
the vegetable garden, I pruned the
apple
tree, I cared for the hanging baskets
of
flowers on the front porch... well,
you get
the idea. I was the gardener.
When we moved to Rhode Island that
pattern
pretty much continued except she did
take
an interest in some of the front yard
landscaping
and planted some geraniums around that
big
boulder in our front lawn. And then
she bailed
out of the high tech computer world
and became
a math teacher.
Suddenly, she had summers.
She got interested in shrubs and flowers
and bushes and... now she is the person
most
likely to mow the lawn... now she plans
what
flowers to plant where, how to lay
out flowerbeds
and plantings.... The vegetable garden
may
still be mine (although she has even
been
known to do watering and weeding when
I am
out of town) but the rest of our yard
has
become her hobby.
Last spring we put in a lot of hours
together
working on landscaping... and she spent
entire
days working on landscaping once summer
vacation
began... putting in plantings around
the
side of the house, in front of the
house,
in back of the house, around the edges
of
the back lawn (there's a small wooded
area,
perhaps forty feet deep, behind our
yard,
separating our property from the neighbor
behind us and thinner strips of trees
along
the sides of our yard, tapering off
as they
near the street). We had a special
impetus
last year as we wanted things to look
nice
for Jennifer's high school graduation
party.
Now that spring is almost here (*grin*)
we
have been looking through all of the
catalogs
that have been arriving in the mail,
making
plans for the coming growing season.
Nancy
is dreaming about her bushes and flowers
and I'm dreaming about my vegetables.
Happy Spring! |
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