This shelter-in-place has brought me back to the basics. I ordered a sourdough starter online. I have baked bread, made a huge batch of spaghetti sauce and this house is spic and span. I’ve polished the silver. Organized every single piece of paper into file folders, washed the winter coats and hung them in the guest room closet. I’ve washed the slipcovers on the sunroom furniture. Wood has power-washed the deck. Edged the whole yard. Mr. Handyman has fixed the deck rocking chair and hung a tennis ball from the garage ceiling to tell us (okay, me) when to stop pulling forward. I’ve stopped short of cleaning baseboards with a Q-tip, but I’m close. Idle isn’t in my DNA.
I really like working in the yard. I love the satisfaction of mowing. Straight rows. No fringe. It appeals to my sense of order, the tidiness that I hunger for. Probably a direct result of having eight kids in a house that always fell short of orderly. There were decades of spilled milk, sticky kitchen floor, errant Legos and globs of mint green toothpaste in the bathroom sink.
We always mulch the flower beds to keep the weed population from overtaking things. A stray dandelion puts both of us into A-fib. So, I thought this year would be the perfect time to start a vegetable garden. We took string and pencils outside and staked off different size options. We started off with 2’ x 6’. Too small. Way too small. Finally settled on 3’ x 11’. We pulled up the sod. No small feat in a mostly dense clay soil. Clods of dirt, at a minimum, fist-sized. No loose dirt falling through our fingers. Bought the vegetables at a local nursery that took online appointments. We signed up for a time and we had 45 minutes to get in and out. We bought tomato plants, cucumber, two kinds of lettuce, green beans, jalapenos, strawberries, parsley, chives and red/green peppers . We bought black fencing to keep the rabbits and squirrels out. We’re ready to plant, right?
Oh no. Wait a minute. Did I mention that my spouse is now in the big middle of this project? After taking up the sod and tilling, we are supposed to let it rest for two to three days. THEN…..we have to do a soil test. A SOIL TEST????? Yup. Four little test tubes. $11.97 at the hardware store. The results will tell us what we need to add to the soil to maximize our harvest. We’re not talking acres here. We’re talking 33 square feet of garden.
Boy oh boy, is this a metaphor for our marriage or what? I’m impulsive. He’s methodical. I jump right in. He stands back and strategizes. I want to get to work right now. He is willing to wait for the information that will give us the best possible harvest. I’m the rookie and willing to learn by doing. He’s the veteran, willing to learn by research.
We’ve been married forty-five years. I approach life like my hair is on fire. He, well, he’s standing by with the fire extinguisher. That’s how we roll.