Seeds Don't Fail Me Now

I breathe such a sigh of relief each afternoon when there's drama, fights or other problems at school that do not involve anyone with my last name. The kids had told me of a willy of an incident in the 7th grade yesterday involving a helicopter, four deputy cars and zero Bodies.

Yet two hours later, I was called over there as Paloma was disrupting the school day, fortunately it was resolved quickly with little collateral damage. I'd told the teacher who'd called me, a pretty young thing who reminds me so much of my niece, Lauren, to get Chuy from the 8th grade hall until I could get there, knowing Chuy calms Paloma somewhat, but also can stop her from hurting others. Anyone else who tries to restrain her could potentially suffer later from false allegations.

I'd darted out the door, shaking wood chips from my clothes, as I'd just hauled two truckloads, finsihing my very lengthy new strawberry bed, freshly dressed in fragrant horse manure, alluring coffee grounds, beneficial brown-gold compost and topped off with a neat mulch of wood chips that made my head giddily spin with their aroma of pine. I'm so positively affected by scents which is indicated in my weird ability to smell my children apart.

An administrator had calmed Paloma down, all the other innocent sixth graders had been shooed from the room once again, and I got Paloma out the door and into the van with little fanfare for once, her waiting bus driver, who'd just pulled up, demonstrated his solidarity with a thumbs up gesture, no doubt glad to have been relieved of his own transport duties on a Friday afternoon when all the kids were majorly amped up over the possibility of the snow that never fell last night, a blessed burst of warm air that resulted only in rainfall which soaked my ready-to-be-planted strawberry bed.

I was thinking about when all my sons are grown, in just a few more years, and I'm a raggedy ole lady living here still wanting to load up trucks with garden gifts like heavy, wet, fresh manure. I best keep my arm muscles supple, not lose this ability, so I very happily shoveled load after load, not at all sore this morning, since this isn't an unusual feat for me, it's more nearly a habit.

As such, in hardly a few more years, most of my sons will be grown and gone, and truly, it's time for an official security system. I had a man give me an estimate yesterday, even allowing for a medical alert for Grandpa, since Grandma and I often run errands, leaving him alone, fighting Pulmonary Fibrosis. I hemmed and hawed over the price, the guy kept throwing in free enticements, and eventually we came to an agreement, sorta. "Lemme think about it," I'd stalled, never one to quickly make financial decisions, but this one really is a no-brainer. It's part and parcel of our electrical parent company and there'll be strategic motion detector and total peace of mind for me, a once foolhardily brave woman who's been sliced down at the knees due to many crappy, even dangerous, events over the last several years. I'm all in favor of this $16.95 a month, no contract option.

I'd told my friend, Amy, how much I was enjoying this book The NEW Low-Maintenance Garden, the picture are utterly fabulous, yet now I'm finding the emphasis on low maintenance to be stressing me out as maintaining my gardens, which are terribly high maintenance, is a joy for me, and the book's making me feel like a hick for preferring hard work over the 'fun of entertaining in a garden with less emphasis on plants.' I think I even hollered 'well kiss my butt, honey' to the author who's so not listening to me yell.

Her intended audience is so not a barefoot hillbilly living reclusively down a dirt road with 39 children clamoring daily and acting out violently...the kids that is, not the hillbilly.

It's still a superb book and I totally get what she's saying, but my need for gardening therapy far surpasses my non-existent desire to give a dang dinner party al fresco. Who'd come eat here where they might get hit upside their head by a flying plate?

Yes, all y'all over-worked die-hard gardeners, this is a beautiful book, but one might deem it noisy if one observed a yoyo like me reading it and responding aloud, but hey, that's how I am.

I wisely decided instead, to calm down before bed, perusing Suzanne Ashworth's Seed to Seed tome, trying to figure where I'd gone so wrong with some pepper seeds that are not germinating, seeds I'd carefully saved from last summer.

Seeds don't fail me now, I'd thought, then my willy-nilly mind got stuck on that old Little Feat song, Feets Don't Fail Me Now, making sleep kinda elusive once again.

And Oh. My. Goodness. I found a 1976 You Tube video of the song right here, watching it in National Geographic detached wonderment, thinking what if I could rewind my life to that year? Still then in college, with a beautiful three year old daughter, Sarah, fixing to move back to Georgia and start my public school career that is now a distant memory, having been retired for nearly eight years now, what other roads could I have taken?

What would I have done differently, knowing what I know now?

Let me count the ways....

But wait, if I truly believe I've been led by God, at least since 1982 when I gave my heart to Him, then I'm now exactly where I should be, doing what I should be doing, right? Here in the land of wet toilet seats and busted sheetrock walls.

Sowing seeds literally and figuratively.