It’s Sunday morning and I am in the garden. Two of the dogs are away at dog training and I have the relief of being in the garden without having to parent the youngest one. He has taken to exploring ways to get through fences that he is not suppose to despite having a bruised tail (it sits at half mast at the moment). Once he has done his jump over the fence we both have the embarrassment of me having to lift him back because of course he can not do it himself. The fence is really too high and he is really too big for such things so there is a mild humiliation occurring on both our parts. He is a dog who has no shame. It is a cool Sunday morning, almost like the sun has decided to stay in bed, acknowledging the forecast rain that is to come in later today. In short it is very grey. The bees are snuggled inside their hive with a small row of regimented lasses at the door standing guard. It feels like a good time weed around the beehive whilst they quiet. It is an easy weed with weeds emerging with a gentle pull from the soil. As I being to fill buckets of weeds a few spits of rain begin to fall.
We mowed the lawn yesterday. Well I say we, the lad mowed the lawn, loading up the growing compost cakes with the clippings once done. I smoothed out the mounds this morning and as I did I felt the warm heat that only comes from a mound of grass clippings begin to rise. It amazed me that it had happened so quickly and then I thought of the magic to come when it all composts down. Come next Autumn I hope to layer the soil with this magic compost. Time will tell. In contrast as I weed I dodge the poppy seedlings that have appeared, their own kind of magic. The flimsy seedlings that seem to come from no root sway about as I try to negotiate what is weed and what is seedling, sometimes unsuccessfully. A poppy removed is quickly popped back into the soil and I can feel the cold dampest around my fingers. A gentle reminder that it is too early to plant but maybe the found box of bulbs I forgot to plant might stand a chance to sprout and grow. The soil feels like the cold of snow.
As I work the spits of rain collect and form a gentle shower which is easy enough to ignore. We are in the time of year were we dance from sun to rain on alternate days with the weather often not working to my planned gardening schedule. There is a new frustration I feel where a sunny day occurs when I have other things to do than garden and when I am free and I am often looking out into the garden from behind a rain splattered window pane. Today I garden on, ignore the rain, wishing if it was going to rain that it would commit in a way that confirmed it was too wet to garden. The rain coat is found, it is taken off ten minutes later in the sigh of it all. I work on until the warmth of the day is enough to rouse my sleepy bees. The hive slowly becomes more active and I can sense that my window to work beside them is coming to an end. Soon I will have inquiring friends, best to quit while I am ahead. Tools are put away, a few photos are taken and then I head indoors for a quiet cup of tea. How was your Sunday?
