Gardening
by
Margaret Cracknell
Love it or hate it. There is no in between. In March, I love it. I can't wait to get out there and start poking around. I start by raking off all the dead leaves I missed in the fall. Did you know ladybugs are tough little things? I find dozens of them under the wet leaves. They have survived the winter with nothing more than a few dead leaves and a foot of snow between them and forty below. Then there's the bulbs nosing their green tips through the black earth and within a week bursting into bloom, and let's not forget the greatest harbinger of spring, the dandelion. Its golden yellow is seen everywhere from the cracks in the sidewalk to banks of it on any waste ground and also in my front lawn. In Europe they sell dandelion leaves in the supermarket for salad. Europeans reach for the oil and vinegar, we reach for the herbicide.
Gardening, yes at this time of year I love it. I'm going to put in a new flower bed by the back door. It will mean less grass to cut but more weeds to pull. Pulling weeds that's the hate part of gardening. By the end of summer there's a fair share of them in with the flowers, but life's too short to waste a good summer working all the time.
Summer, I love it, sitting in the sun with my feet up and a good book to read, listening to the birds and the drowsy hum of the bees. Soon your book falls and you've dropped off to sleep. Ah, that's the life. I can't wait for it to start.
