Sydney is the gardener in the house. I will not be fighting him for his title any time soon. But this fall I got an itch to plant bulbs. The tiny crocuses, grape hyacinths, daffodils and narcissus in the spring are my favorite flowers of the year. After asking permission to dig up parts of Christi’s lawn, I was intending to go ahead, when Sydney suggested that I make use of his expertise in the process.
As it turns out, I rejected all expertise, and just made use of the muscle. I didn’t heed his attempts to tempt me with exotic bulbs from mail-order places, instead buying what I wanted at the local ag store. But when it came time to plant the things, we realized it was going to be quite a chore. Tree roots and rocks comprise 90% of our yard, despite the green stuff on top. So after saying he was just going to get the turf up, Sydney proceeded to dig me all of the little trenches I needed for my bulbs. By the end he was exhausted. Oh yeah, and he did this with a fever that’s been nagging him for the last several days.
I had a few more things to plant elsewhere, so I though I could handle a couple of small holes myself. Ha! Within about ten seconds I had a major rock pile beside my little hole. When I pulled most of the large rocks out, Sydney told me I should use a pickax to break up the soil (what little there was left). I thought he was kidding, but nope, that was the tool for the job. A pickax??? It definitely made me feel like part of the local chain gang, though Sydney said any decent chain gang member would fall over with laughter while watching me. Oh well, it worked, and in the process of digging the holes both Sydney and I felt a longing for home, he for his sandy Nova Scotia soil, and me for the loamy black dirt from Iowa. Ithaca is a lovely place, but I’m not surprised that early settlers pushed westward for their farming!
Erin
Alan Schmierer