Whittling Away with Dick Brooks - Spring - v05222026

Spring has arrived in our yard with all the subtlety of a pink bulldozer. The gardens that I raked just a couple of weeks ago, pulling off their winter covers to look for signs of green life underneath, now have plants a foot or more tall. The older I get, the more comfort I take from this annual resurrection. The shrubs, bushes and trees are adding their colors and aromas to all the excitement. I can’t seem to make it past the lilac tree near the back walk without pausing for at least one good sniff and a moment to admire the myriad of small blossoms. There are buds growing and swelling everywhere, what a great time of the year, a real celebration of the ending of the brown and white times.

The only problem comes when I try to raise my energy level to match Mother Nature’s. All this activity needs to matched with human labor. I wish I could get a few of these plants to slow down. Number one on the list would be grass. I’ve mowed the lawn twice already and it needs it again. It wouldn’t be so bad if this was city grass or that kind of grass that grows only on The Home and Garden Channel. That kind never seems to have to be mown, it doesn’t seem to have bald spots or weeds in it. My grass has hair on its chest, it’s a particularly hardy strain of crab grass that seems to be able to survive every thing from drought to nuclear attacks. It grows like bamboo, a foot or more per day. It will turn brown if there’s a long period with little rain, but let there be a five minute drizzle and its green and growing again. I suppose I shouldn’t complain, it does make the lawn green, in fact it looks quite pretty now, dotted as it is with all the dandelion blossoms.                            Dandelions are one of my spring favorites. They are under loved and not appreciated by those perfect lawn guys on The Home and Garden Channel who are out there with all kinds of toxic chemicals and major weapons of mass destruction, including flame throwers, to wipe out these small little harbingers of spring. I don’t understand the bad rap these little guys get. I think they’re really pretty, I don’t have to plant or weed them. You can eat them, they make a great salad green. You can drink them, my Father used to make a dandelion wine that could make a one-legged man tap dance. They are one of the first blooms of spring and is there anyone who as a toddler didn’t pick some and give them to their Mommy who promptly melted like a Pop-sickle on a warm day. They are one of the few flowers that can be picked with impunity, something a child learns at an early age.

To make room for all the plants appearing in the gardens, I put away the bird feeders this week. It kind of ticked off the little freeloaders, I told them to come back in the fall when the soup kitchen would be re-opened. I then shooed the remaining twelve pound Chickadees out of the yard. I checked the bird seed bag tally that I’ve kept in the garage near the seed container. The little feathered friends chowed down on two hundred pounds of black oil sun flower seeds this year. No wonder I raked up three wheel barrow loads of seed hulls from around the feeders.

It’s almost time for The Queen of our house to supervise the annual division of the plants. She points out the clumps to be dug up and then she performs surgery and suddenly there are a multitude of new plants that need a home. This usually means the birth of a new garden. This has been a rite of spring for years, resulting in a yard full of beautiful gardens where there were none before. How lucky I am even though finding homes for the left over plants is kind of like getting rid of a batch of kittens, they need love and care but give back more than they receive. That’s all for now, I think I’ll go stand under the lilac for a while.

Thought for the week—You’re never too old to learn something stupid.

Until next week, may you and yours be happy and well.

Whittle12124@yahoo.com