GARDENING has been called the purest of human pleasures. It has also been called a fool’s paradise.
After the first weekend of the season in the garden, I tend to the latter.
This past weekend was so warm and sunny I could hear the garden calling. Leave the housework, it was saying.
Lay down your book, put away your sewing and come play.
Well, play it certainly wasn’t.
I started raking and making little piles of debris here and there.
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I installed cement blocks for a backdrop to the Iceland poppies I’m going to plant.
I moved the birdbath to a new position and installed the picnic table and bench I carted home from a recent auction sale.
Whoops, I mean we carted home, since the husband was an accomplice, albeit unwilling, muttering all the time about how auctioneers can mesmerize me.
If the truth be known, I didn’t really want the picnic table and bench. I was actually after the wooden loveseat next to them, but when they sold the three pieces together, well, what’s a girl to do?
Sunday, I decided to plant some peas and sweet peas.
Since the husband was busy in another part of the yard, I decided to put up the sweet pea fence all by my little self.
I pushed the poles into the ground as far as I could, which wasn’t far.
Then I tried pounding them in with a brick.
I decided it was break time, and headed out to the machinery shed where I found the wheelbarrow (needed for later in case you’re wondering) and a rubber mallet.
Hubby asked what I was doing and I told him getting a hammer.
He looked a little bemused as I rushed by with the wheelbarrow, but after 23 years he doesn’t question much.
I whacked the poles with the mallet a few times, with limited success.
At this point, hubby strolled out to the garden to see what I was doing.
He immediately doubled up. I was thinking heart attack, but it was an attack of another kind.
When he finished laughing, he fetched what I knew I needed all along, but knew I couldn’t carry – the hand-held post driver.
A couple of good whacks and the poles were secure in the ground.
Then, I “helped” install the fence. Independence is fine, but it only goes so far.
My next garden project is a pole person to be made out of a fence post and assorted scraps of wood and metal and some sort of bolts.
I’ll make sure it’s a sunny, warm day when I get started so we can both enjoy the experience.
