Soon, I’m told, we’ll be able to grow six marijuana plants (or is it 12 per couple filing jointly?), which, as I said to Mary, may impel me to get back to gardening again.
I once was avid in that regard, my steering wheel turning of its own accord when I’d be driving by Hren’s (now Groundworks). But the deer feasted on just about everything I grew, and if it wasn’t the deer, it was the voles.
Of 16 andromedas I planted in the backyard one survives, though it is mammoth. And it was hasta la eternidad for the hosta. Not a daylily is left from among scores I planted in with the pachysandra. So I gave it up, you see, and moved on to other projects, none of which I can recall at the moment.
Yes, marijuana plants. . . . No, but then the deer would nibble them and get the munchies, and it would be even worse than before.
We’ve had this raised, rotatable compost bin out back for I don’t know how long. It’s bursting at the seams. Mary feeds it regularly and turns it gently, hoping, I guess, that someday what’s within will be put to productive use by the useless (that’s me, in case you were wondering).
Every spring she gets this vernal urge, which is natural, I guess, and I do try to humor her. Ah, spring! Look, a bird shat all over your car window! Soon, it’ll be the sticky catkins raining down from the oak trees.
For some reason — perhaps the pandemic has played a role — she’s been thinking a lot lately of sprucing things up, within and without. All the trim I’d painted dark red in more insouciant days is now pristine white. I must confess it looks better, and the mother of all couches is to arrive at the end of the month. In the meantime, we’re making do with a couple of wicker chairs, which, ever one to rise to a challenge, I’ve successfully been able to doze off in. In fact, I did just that this afternoon before sitting down to write this column, on having read maybe three pages in a book about sleep.
I might get back to gardening if we had a fence tall enough to keep the deer out, and shored up sufficiently at the bottom to keep the rabbits at bay. Yes, I might do that, I might. . . .