More of the Same, Sort Of

My sister said that, when her older grandson started walking, he would often stand by the door and say, with great passion, “‘Side, ‘Side, ‘Side.” He desperately wanted to go outside.

I’m feeling a little like that, these days. I’ll get up. I might do a jigsaw puzzle on the computer (the temperature might still be rather chilly). I’ll make my egg & cheese burrito; and then I’ll put on my overalls and go outside.

Wednesdays are my day to go to the elementary school where some of our church members and I read with kids during their lunch times. Last Wednesday, when I left the school, after reading, I went straight to a nearby nursery and bought three big bags of dirt. Well, they’re not that big. There were bags that were quite large; I know that I cannot pick up a bag of dirt that heavy. And, truly, the bags that I did buy were too heavy for me to pick up and tote around to the side of the house. (Fortunately, there are strong guys at the nursery who can easily pick up those bags of dirt).

But, I do have a wheelbarrow. I pushed the wheelbarrow from the little storage shed in the backyard around to the garage. I had the car’s remote control, and I used it to raise the garage door. Then, I opened the trunk and strained to pull one of the dirt-filled bags to the edge of the open trunk. Then, I pulled and tugged until I could get one bag into the wheelbarrow. Then, I closed the trunk, used the remote control to close the garage door, and, struggling, got the bag around the corner of the house.

I tipped the wheelbarrow over so that the bag of dirt fell close to the edge of the concrete edging stone. I used a pointed garden tool to stab a nice, big hole in the bag, and then I used a scooping garden tool to move lots of nice, black dirt to fill in the space between the back side of a few of the edging stones and the flower bed. Then, after I’d poured out all the dirt from one bag, I had to go back to the garage door and start all over. (The wheelbarrow is rather unwieldy, and I can only manage one bag at a time.)

At last, all three bags were empty and all the spaces were filled with nice garden dirt and none of the edging stones were wobbly.

I do try to be efficient. Sometimes that translates to “lazy.” Here’s my plan for some of the watering:

I planted some new hostas. And, now, the space where I’ve been putting hosta plants for a while, is pretty much full. I could put some more in, I guess. However, all the hosta plants that I put in last year have now come back, a couple of them really spectacularly. I’ve added some more, but now, that’s it. For good, I think. They die back in the winter, but every one that I’ve previously planted has popped back up again. I did, however, after I said that I was done with the hosta shopping, I found a “Captain Kirk” hosta. (It’s the one at the bottom of the photo.) But that’s  it!

So the earth produced all kinds of plants, and God was pleased with what he saw. 

Genesis 1:12 (Good News Translation)