For All They're Worth
In fits and spurts, it seems, I fly out the door and around to this garden or that one, slipping my hands into gloves, grabbing my trowel and shovel and that old bushel basket for catching the weeds. Most usually, though, the basket is left half-full at the place where I started, a swath of weeds with their naked, blinking roots connecting us down the bed and around the corner. A wild woman on a weeding mission has no time for putting weeds into baskets, apparently.
This is late spring, but feels like summer, which has required a lengthened stride to keep pace with the immediacy of the crowded top-of-the-list. When a fuller-than-usual May spills over into June, you just keep going, knowing that the faster clip now will make for a slower pace later, when, somewhere in the mix, a few lazy days of summer may be waiting.
Pull the weeds. Test the soil. Haul in aged manure. Sprinkle blood meal. Scatter bone meal. Turn the soil. Plant. No matter that it's all a bit late. There's warmth and sunshine aplenty up ahead. And while your hands are busy with that work, let your mind wander and maybe plan a summer dinner for girlfriends. Take inspiration from the cookbook you just read, note the neighbor's abundant rhubarb patch, the fresh farm eggs in the fridge, and the clipped herbs in the hobnail glass on your counter. Mostly, take those weeding, planting, tending moments for all they're worth.
Because soon, you'll be jumping into the next shoes of the day, designing, managing, editing, writing, creating, parenting, and partnering, where there may not be such space for wandering thoughts.