LET’S GET OUT THERE AND PLANT

OK, another lost weekend in the back yard. The Little Woman decided she wanted to put one (1) plant in a spot in our garden in the back behind the den. I figured, “Oh good, not too expensive”

We get to the nursery, and we buy (12) twelve plants, because I want to pot a few behind the pool, she wants to put some in a flower holder by the pool and don’t forget the garden where we put (2) plants-cost: a dislocated back, aching hands, dirt under the fingernails, sore feet and a lot of money.

We are in the nursery and she says: “get me out of this place, I’m spending too much money, how much are those plants over there?” Or “O.K, you have looked at 12,000 different shade plants, now make a decision.” Or “Ask the man over there what kind of plant this is and is it good in the shade?”

Of course we never learn, when we go to the nursery two things take over.

1.) A charity runs the nursery for retarded children and adults so the money we spend goes to a good cause.

2.) We have just redesigned the landscape around the house, so we are really getting into landscaping.

Lugging the plants homeward, we think about how nice things will look, and how poor we now are, and how truly well the charity is suddenly doing.

I remember when I couldn’t even grow weeds. I would try to plant grass, and I got sand. Yes, I grew sand. Lots of it too, since it sprung up everywhere. My wife never told the kids, “Don’t bring dirt into the house” no she would say “Don’t bring sand into the house”. But the kids always felt that they were at the beach all day, even in the winter. The folks at Jones Beach would call to buy sand from me to fight the erosion from the storms. So when we moved into a bigger house, my son asked me to get rid of the beach and get a pool instead.

I did have a huge placement of vines that started on the garage wall, and spread to half of the back yard that I inherited when I bought my first house. It was impossible to walk back there, and I didn’t know how to get rid of it. It was a monumental job to do by myself, so one day I got an idea. My neighbor had gotten a fireplace, and needed fire wood. I told my neighbor he could cut down about six trees that populated the vine growth if he pulled out the vines too. Next day I come home from work, and it looks like the Great Plains, Big Sky Country, and the Bonneville Salt Flats all rolled into one.

In that old house, everything was old, in this house I live in now, I’m the only thing old.