Dirt and Sparkly Pink Fingernails...
Yesterday I spent the day in my garden trying to make it look less like I am purposely trying to cultivate weeds. There were weeds from one end to the other. The entire ground was green and that would be fine if the green served some sort of nutritional purpose...nope just life-sucking useless green harbingers of death...I still have at least another days worth of weeding to do and already my fingers look like they are attached to the wrists of a wild woman. My pretty pink nail polish is barely visible under the green stains and dirt...and just so that you all know I did wash my hands and scrub them, in fact I scrubbed them so much I am surprized my skin is still clinging to the bones...and still the green and dirt remains...I could wear gloves and it would make life easier, my hands would still look like they belong to a woman...but have you ever tried to pull weeds with gloves on? It takes all of the excitment and joy right out of grabbing the weed around its scrawny neck and ripping it mercilessly from the ground...I need to feel the dirt with my bare hands, gloves just steal the magic.
I would post a before pic so that you can truely understand the wreckage that was my garden...but it was just WAY too embarrassing and a disgrace to gardeners every where...in fact I swear I could see a look of disgust on our farmers face as he drove his big-ass new tractor past my garden and I am pretty sure I know what he was thinking too...that woman still "ain't" country...
I would post a before pic so that you can truely understand the wreckage that was my garden...but it was just WAY too embarrassing and a disgrace to gardeners every where...in fact I swear I could see a look of disgust on our farmers face as he drove his big-ass new tractor past my garden and I am pretty sure I know what he was thinking too...that woman still "ain't" country...
posted by Lucy Kruze at 6:10 AM
8 Comments:
Ah, so you do dress your nails. I empathize with you vis a vis the garden (not the nails). "We really want some color in the backyard," my wife said. In my advanced years I removed about 200 square feet of "desert lanscaping" and put in a garden, with a "water feature." They do require a lot of attendance, don't they? Now, it's not that I don't enjoy gardening, at least on some level, it's just that I'd rather be reading or even writing (the latter of which is not an entirely enjoyable task, incidentally).
All of this mitigates in favor our home in New York City, where we have a tree that sits just outside the front entrance and some begonias and houseplants inside. The former is attended by the city, the latter by my wife.
Weeds, incidentally, have their place as well and I see nothing wrong with fields of dandelions.
I agree...dandelions are beautiful and when our farmers field is full of them I have this incredible need to run thru them barefoot and fling myself to the ground with my arms stretched wide and take in all of their sunny little faces...
I know what you mean about ripping those suckers out with bare hands, I think dirty hands are beautiful. Okay, I mean garden dirty, and not "I-peed-and-my-hands-are-dirty" dirty.
Lucy...you and I have said it to each other before. We'll never be country in the eyes of "country folk" since we moved to the country and weren't born there. We will always be those "city people!!" Even 40 year down the road. I'm with you on pulling weeds bare handed...tons more fun. If you're going to plant a garden (and in time weed it) then the hands should be bare.
The Real Dirt on Farmer John scheduled on PBS is quite charming and I recommend. We just saw an advance this evening.
From The Los Angeles Times: The Soil Tastes Good
Feel free to delete this. Would have emailed it but don't have you're address.
I agree with the dirty hands and for that matter gardening isn't gardening inless your hands are bare and in the dirt. I tend to kick my garden clog off and go bare foot in the garden as well.
Love reading your blog! You have such a way with words. And, I also pick weeds with my bare hands and have lived in the country my whole life, even after I got married. Love ya,
blondie
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