First we needed to put my garden to bed. Never mind that I had barely pulled a weed all summer, and our only crops were the must-plant-peas and volunteer squash from the year before. Gabe and I ventured to the little raised bed with gloves and shovels. The first thing Gabe did was shake an old squash. "Mom, look what's inside, do you think they're seeds?" (Note to self, don't forget to teach the last children as much as you teach the first children.) We talked about the life cycle of a plant and I felt myself thrilling at the miracle of creation. We gathered all the dead squash after Gabe spilled about 60 seeds in a 2 ft. radius, that will be our squash patch 2014. Then we went to weeding. The ground was parched and resistant. I continued my duty and then glanced over at my son who acted like he knew what he was doing and that he wanted to do it right. (More thrill.)
When the garden was cleared I said, "Gabe, I'm going to go get the wheelbarrow..." Up he jumped , as if by magic, to fetch the wheelbarrow. I met him past the fire pit, just into the trees where the compost piles had been percolating. We all know that people who compost are cool. Two summers ago, our cool friends, the Weislers, delivered some little round compost pens for me to start working on my own coolness. Well, being more of a dreamer than an actual doer I went for cool lite. I didn't really layer green and brown, and then fluff, but I did tell Andrew to dump the lawn clippings in the compost pens and then waited. After 1 year I just had dried grass, but after 2 years I observed change. It wasn't exactly the black gold they talk about in the garden books, but there was metamorphosis and a nice fat worm crawling in and out and through. Just think, while I stress about this and that and run around crazy, God's creations are doing exactly what they were created to do and beautiful things are happening, like magic.
When we started loading the wheelbarrow with compost Gabe began explaining things to me, "Some things I'm manly in. Like, I'm not afraid to get stung by a wasp. Yeah, it hurts, but I don't scream like a girl. Another thing is rain. I can walk in the rain and it doesn't bother me at all." This manly man, magically loaded and pushed the wheelbarrow back to the garden where we spread and turned, in hopes of improving neglected soil.
Next stop, the front yard. Andrew had taken out a bush, but there was a black plastic guard that had encircled the bush to keep the grass out. Well, now I wanted the grass in, so the circle needed to go. We didn't know how deep it went so we both got our shovels. Mine was the big one, Gabe's was the small one. For the few of you who are wondering what roots do when they meet a plastic guard, they grow round and round and anchor it in place. Well, we saw that fighting the roots would not be easy. Gabe asked, "What if Andrew were here?" The answer of course is that Andrew would do the job with his strong muscles, but Andrew was not here. Once again my 13 yr. old son magically rose to the occasion. He began digging with strength and determination. With the help of some garden clippers to release the root death grip, he freed the plastic from it's imprisonment.
As we were working in the soil I thought of a million life lessons. Maybe that is why we're supposed to garden. I shared with the struggling Gabe trying to dig out the stubborn root, "That's where we get the saying, "Get to the root of the matter." Gabe was not impressed. He explained, "In my mind, it's 'Find the heart of the bad guy hide out." Okay, his imagination works better. We dug and pulled and clipped and smoothed and then I realized, I feel happy and full of light. Just like magic. What a beautiful morning.
PS Gabe said, "Don't forget to tell that I got to the bottom of the plastic first and with a smaller shovel." One more thing you're manly in, son.
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