Regrouping

The tomato plants weren't as resilient to neglect as I afore thought. Many have lost their will to live. Or perished from dehydration. Whichever. The point is, it was a blow. Luckily, my human charges have survived. I haven't checked their vital signs, but they appear to be in good shape.

Of course, I consulted the guru about the tomatoes and she reinforced her previous advice that all is not lost. I could kill off all of these tomatoes, start over completely and still have more than she is likely to grow in her stingy climate zone. I took that as encouragement to put more things outside. As a person who enjoys gambling small stakes, such as a few $3.25 seed packets, I figured it was worth a shot to see if Mother Nature has better luck at keeping these needy little seedlings upright than I have had. So far she has nurtured a gorgeous set of peas. Those girls have plumaged themselves some spiky vinelets to go with their ruffle of leaves. They now look as though they are ready for a tea party.

Encouraged by my little ladies I planted bush beans, cucumbers, carrots, spinach, beets as well as more peas and sunflowers today. I also had the kids out there planting in their raised beds. My daughter was very methodical with the whole thing and carefully sowed her choices: the dreaded zea mays for popcorn, pumpkins and cucumbers. She left a row open not for future decision making, she knows she wants watermelons in her last row, but so that the fun of planting isn't finished for her. She preferred to save up a little for later. Daniel Goleman would be proud. All of her varieties need a lot of space so it should be interesting to see how they manage to contain themselves in a 4' x 4' plot. My prediction is much like my children, they won't. My son put the popcorn in and had enough. The call of the dirt pile was just too alluring. As for the littlest guy, he went from square to square wielding a toy trowel and making all of us nervous for our plots.

In addition to all of those seeds, I plopped a lot of seedlings in too. It's early and I did nothing to harden them off, but they have a better chance outside than with me even with those odds against them, sad to say. So now there is a little herb patch and marigolds everywhere. Project buckshot is under way. Fire at will! Fire at will!

After spending the day outside tidying up my gardening tasks, I headed in and began chipping away at the rest of my life that got backed up. Stacks of mail and backpack papers had to be processed. Bills, field trip permission slips, order forms, receipts, paystubs, art work, quarterly investment statements and the like all had to find their way somewhere other than my kitchen island. Under there I also found new Netflixes and past due library books. (It would be nice if the latter took some tips from the former about return policies.)

And I finally unloaded my totes full of pots out of the back of my SUV. Much as the idea of always having stock at my fingertips is appealing, as in: "Ooh, Heather, I'd love to see your work." "Well, you're in luck, let me just run out to my car." My children were not fairing well lined up in one row. Not only did I have to do all of their seatbelts for them, but the touching distance proximity was just too irresistible for their little hands. That just never ends well.

Now that I am all caught up and life has again been weeded and tamed, I was tempted to start in on new to do lists f the next projects down the pike. But the guru gave me another piece of advice which was to write a "To Done" list wherein you can concentrate on all of the things you have accomplished rather than all you still have to do. And so I have.