Spring fever

I love Spring planting. I can hardly stand to work during the days that plants are spouting out of the earth and buds are opening. I am so afraid that I will miss this wonderful introduction to my garden that I plot and plan to figure out how I can get more outside time.

I wasn't always this way. Marriage, work, Susannah's needs, and responsibility always seemed to intervene when I was younger. I discovered the intricacies of gardening when Susannah was about 12 and she was more into her friends than into me. I replaced her dependency with watering and nurturing the garden.

This year, Spring has waxed and waned. I've been busy planting and trasferring and pruning. Cold days like today frustrate me because I've got so much to do. Easter is right around the corner and I wanted to have the back yard looking glorious when Anderson found his first Easter egg. I am not daunted by the possibility that the first thing he will do with an egg is try to put it in his mouth.

Unfortunately, a huge beetle eaten pine tree has robbed me of the pleasure of hunting eggs in the back yard. With the high winds, it is dancing in the wind and Bob says it will surely fall with the next high wind. We tried to have it cut down but the tree company needed a bucket machine to be moved next to it and advised us that we would have to lose 2 more oak trees to actually get it down. It's too dangerous to climb. I refused to even consider the possibility and now I'm eying the front yard as a possibility for egg-hunting.

Susannah laughs at me and says I'm possessed. She has no idea that I once took my child-rearing duties with the same intensity that I now care for the garden. Once in a while, I get to glimpse the long term effects of my nurturing: When she reads lovingly to Anderson...when she bestows unconditional love on Gus and Annabelle....when she squeals with joy over Anderson's ever present smile and tells him how beautiful he is.... when she calls her dad or her grandfather just to check on them...when she lets Adam watch sports even though she has no interest in the outcome of the game...when she calls me three times a day just to tell me she loves me.

No sprinkler or fertilizer can create that. It takes love and selflessness.