The Gardener In Denial

But as I look 'round the lot, the trees, the falling leaves, the rain, wind and darkness of a stormy day in late October, tell me otherwise. Just the same, there are things I can be doing and between the drops I can be found sitting on my cushion covered milk crate poking at the wild clover in the grass.

Preparing the ground and planting the little sprigs between the stones is easy - I'm right under the big pine, a place I always hide from the wet stuff.

Earlier on, I had an hour's respite. The rain had stopped; there was little wind and even a splatter of sunshine across the ground. I was poking my knife around in the scrub at the retaining wall and found little shoots had appeared. Lo and Behold! Those dried beans I put in there at the end of August were sprouting!

"You're supposed to be sleeping, you know that, don't you?" I said to the little gathering I dug out of the scrub and transplanted along the fence.

"You're supposed to be indoors keeping dry." the beans replied. "I didn't know dried beans could talk." I remarked. "Neither did I.?" said one of the nasturtiums in the rock garden.

Well, enough of that nonsense, talking to the plants, I thought and Skitter and I ambled over to the north island to admire the recent additions to the landscape.

One of the tenants made a great find the night before - two gorgeous (hydrangea, I think) bushes. Simon's a resourceful old soul and when he sees a renovation site where a lot of good growth is being turfed up to make way for new bricks, he doesn't think twice about approaching whoever is in charge and saying "Say, could I have that? Our gardener could give that a home."

After supper, Jeff and I wasted no time; we got out the shovel, the peat moss, the hose and within the hour the two bushes were in, complete with four stones around each to ward off the nosy squirrels.

And now? Well, I had to give in to it. Things were going well; I was even feeling rather warm - that lady with the pointer on T. V. said it would be around 20 Celsius, but she was also right about the rain. When it began to fall in earnest, I didn't worry about it too much - I just went on digging under the boughs of the pine.

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