I was also a little blue because I didn't have my kiddo with me much. From Friday through Wednesday he was with my folks at Lake Texoma, and from Thursday through Sunday he was with his dad. It's funny how I can transition from "oh boy! Time all to myself!" to "I want my boy back!" so quickly. I did get an overnight at the lake on Tuesday night, however, and the weather was cooperating pretty well.
The big news for G about the lake is driving the golf cart. I have to admit, it's a pretty fun little thing to drive around. But this time, for the first time, Grayson was able to really and truly drive all on his own. Nobody needed to remind him about keeping his speed steady or not slamming on the brakes or oversteering. My dad said it was like all the lessons and coaching came together and clicked, and he was driving like a champ. I was so proud of him, and it was clear he was proud of himself. I keep saying it, but it keeps being true... my boy is growing up. I'm not sure how to feel about this. Of course I want him to grow up and mature and be an independent, responsible person, but who will sit in my lap when he's grown up? My lap likes that.
It makes me understand how it is that otherwise perfectly normal adult humans go absolutely goofy over their grandchildren.
Finally, by Sunday I was over my cold and/or allergy bout enough to get outside. The weather, after dithering a bit during the first part of the week, seemed to decide to settle on spring after all, and Sunday was gorgeous. I went out to "just look" at the plants in the nursery and came home with the back of my car full of flowers, veggies and herb plants, ready to go into the garden.
I know I'm running a risk, planting this early, but I just couldn't help myself. After days indoors, and a really nasty winter, I needed some DIRT. So I spent the afternoon digging and weeding, raking and planting, happy as a toad in the garden. Now almost all my veggies (with the exception of the squash) are in, and I'm watching the nighttime temperatures carefully each day to see if I need to run outside and snuggle any tomatoes to keep them warm through the night. I'll do what I have to do. I need gardening!
Strangely, my gardening bug coincided over the break with a sudden and irresistible need to get Girlie, so I went out and got a new set of acrylic nails put on. I realize that this is the height of folly at this time of year, because fake nails and gardening just do not go together. But I did it, I just needed a little pretty in my life. So now I'm out in the garden in my gloves, trying to turn over a new section of brutal Oklahoma clay full of die-hard bermuda grass runners... without peeling off a fingernail. Noone ever said pretty was smart, sadly. So far so good, however. I've managed not to rip my nails off, and the garden did get turned and planted.
I wish I had a picture of my own Big Mama I could post here. I'll have to look for one and scan it in. Every time I plant my garden I think of her. She kept an enormous garden in the yard of her house when I was growing up, and she worked it all herself until she was well into her 90s. I can see her in my mind's eye, in the pocketed pinafore apron and sunbonnet that my mom made for her every year, leaning on her hoe handle and picking off tomato worms or turning over a bed of potatoes or filling a basket with okra pods. I wish she could see me now. I wish she could tell me what to do about the vine borers that get my squash every year, and how to get my onions to grow like hers did: fat and sweet and delicious. I feel close to her when I have my hands in the dirt, and I miss her, then, too.
I laugh and tell Bob that I'm the person to know when the grid goes down, because I'll still be able to grow us food. It's not really true, though. I'm one of those bumbling urban gardeners who produces the $65 tomato every year: putting way more money and sweat into the garden than I probably receive in actual produce. I lose my squash plants to vine borers by the end of June and my tomatoes to spider mites or flower-end-rot by July. By the end of the season I've pretty much given up on about all but my peppers and mint, and am just hoping for better results next year. Most of my successes are accidental: like the crop of cucumbers I put in -- in JULY -- two years ago that took off and scrambled over my whole front flower bed, shooting out so many footlong cukes that I took to giving them to everyone I knew. Or the grape tomato a few years ago that shaded out or strangled everything around it, but showered me with sweet, delicious thumb-sized tomatoes all summer long. Last year I had an explosion of lettuce, next to a crop of radishes that were all tops and no bottoms.
We'll see what surprises I get this year.
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