A NEW SEASON BEGINS

With the advent of the first real, gen-u-wine Spring we've had in ages, I've been throwing caution and my bad knee and hip to the wind and burying myself in the warming soil of my gardens. It's not a good day if I don't come in with at least some dirt under half of what passes for my fingernails and a smudged cheek or nose, clothes so dirty that I can't even put them with the other dirty clothes in the laundry and the iniability to lift my right leg to climb the garage stairs into the house. But even pain can give way to the satisfaction felt from having cleaned and prepped a new spring bed already sporting new life without any help from me.

Life can be good and even better when I'm allowed to while away a few hours on most days revelling in the solitude and respite of my garden. Marveling at the return of a late-entry perennial I put in the previous November when I was sure there weren't enough warm days and slightly warmish nights to help it establish roots and reward me in spring. Like this Celandine Wood Poppy, with it's bright yellow coins and oak leaves that was one of the first to greet me this year.

Seems each new season is begun with me forgetting just how very much it all means to me. It isn't just a new plant here and there, a load of mulch, or a steaming pile of black-gold compost awaiting. It's that. All of that. But, so much more. It's like a gigantic, impossible-to-swallow-pill that every therapist and analyst wishes they had at their disposal. It's my yearly fix and no matter what the side effects, (i.e. aches and god-awful pains sometimes) I still keep coming back for more. An incurable garden junkie I guess. With a resulting high of more pluses than minunses; more rewards than disadvantages. And always worth it.

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER

With some encouraging news on the health front temporarily abated, my endorphins are being allowed to come out of temporary shut down and kick my gardening enthusiasm up a notch. Oh, it's been there. Just relegated way down on my priority list these days.

In between doctor visits & tests, I did manage to start some seeds. Not nearly half as many as I would normally have begun at the end of a winter/beginning of a spring season. But, the few I seeded, germinated and are coming along. S-l-0-w-l-y... However. But then...so am I.

So now with those enhanced endorphins I can get back into my "Seed-Starting Chamber" (aka: my writing & craft room) and start those seeds that would be direct seeded this time of year. While I will probably wind up having to direct seed more than I usually do, there are some (if given the opportunity------and I have) I'd just as soon start inside. I can manage them better. Don't have to worry about turning on the hose to water them outside if we don't get adequate rainfall or bemoan the deer tracks galomping and stomping down freshly seeded areas. No...I'm a masochist. I'd rather go through all the trouble babying my little seedlings inside; hardening them off in a safe area (no greenhouse this year, remember?) and then planting them out so the deer can galomp and stomp larger seedlings!

I know these poor little sprouts will sometimes get crushed by numerous hooves because those hooves are only headed toward some plant further back in the border that's already leafed out and just happens to be high on the Bambi Buffet Menu. *Note to self: Maybe if I moved all deer delights up front, they wouldn't have to go so far into the beds and borders to get to the main course?* A thought.

Most of the beds and borders have been cleaned and spruced up. At least things look a little neater. There's some early spring color from the creeping phlox and yellow wood poppy. The old fashioned bleeding heart, which I transplanted a week ago is taking well and is sporting buds. As are the two huge buddleas, a white and a rather unsightly yellow, we moved two weeks ago. I wasn't particularly fond of the yellow. It has a completely different, more open, almost spindly growth habit and much smaller inflorescence. It's positioning was way to prominent, being foolishly originally and naively planted in the border too close to the front of the house and despite seasonal whacking back to the bare ground, still managed to dwarf its neighbors and block a portion of the view of the house. But, the bees and butterflies still liked it (coming in a respectable fourth to the pinks, purples and whites - in that order.) So, as with any plant that doesn't fit the bill for one reason or another, it never haphazardly gets tossed! Just moved to a more suitable location. In the case of the yellow buddleia "Honeycomb", it fell into my plant logic of: "If you make it where I put you, fine. If not...well, c'est la vie!" So far it's pushing new growth and holding its own in between one forty-foot oak and an equally tall pine. It's a duking of the roots for dominance. The best I can hope for it is that won't die. Sounds cold. But, that can be life in the Plant World.

Heck, life in my Human Health World of late has seemed a little merciless at times. But, I'm holding my own and with digging in my roots as well. We don't always work out where or how we intended. Sometimes all we need is a little repositioning and someone - or some Entity - to give us a second chance.

IT ONLY HURTS WHEN I DON'T LAUGH

I'm beginning to wonder if the reason I've been getting off "fairly" lucky these past few years without any major health issues (aside, of course from the usual arthritis, fleeting and not-so-fleeting bouts of depression and various and sundry accidents that have laid me up and out of action for awhile) is because it's all been accumulating...saving up...to whomp me all at once. For the Chinese, this is supposed to be The Year of The Dog. For this half Italian/half Canadian, 2006 is playing out as The Year of the Bitch all right.

If it were one thing to have thrown my system..my life..my priorities...out of whack, it'd be enough of an upheaval and adjustment. But it's two, two, two-physical ailments in one (as goes the old jingle).

There seems no way to begin at the beginning, because I'm already halfway into the second act and trying to bring any latecomers up to date is a bother. Not the fault of the dear reader. But my personal dislike and impatience at having to synopsize three months of aggravation, fear, anxiety, impatience and still unable to conjur up a more picture. For now, it's a jumble of scattered puzzle pieces that (at times) do seem to fit....only if I whack them hard enough however.

When I'm not crying, or wringing my hands in worry, staring off into space, or staying awake till all hours (like now, at 3:30am)...when I'm not doing any of those, I'm trying my best to keep busy with the whatever I can. "Whatever I can" usually pans out to be the more mundane. That which requires the least amount of grey-matter usage or anxiety which I don't need more of right about now. This is where my gardening and all the precursors that attend it (the seeding, coddling baby seedlings, prepping the soil, etc.) come in. Having been around the gardenig rodeo for over 20 years, much is done by rote, although it's still not easy. The effort I expend is more physical and creative. The physical I can handle if I pace myself and the creativity is like manna for a hungry woman. It's the juice or grease which lubricates the brain gears. Makes the real arduous use of those synapses, electrons and neurons in my system work at optimum speed and agility when I need to kick them up a notch in prep for another test, another bit of blood drawn, another doctor visit and another arduous sretch in yet another hospital outpatient waiting room.

In this particular instance and at this particular place and time in my life, gardening provides a welcome respite in which to lose myself. Albeit temporarily while coddling a cotyledon or weeding a bed for seeding, it gently nudges me and my cares down that garden path and off into another direction.

All I have to do is glance at my calendar and see the week of scheduled appointments ahead of me. But, for today, I'll check my garden calendar and see what seeds best be planted now and which of my temporarily heeled-in perennials in my back "nursery" bed are stretching their reborn arms and crying to be replanted. Gotta go. The "kids" are calling.

BEGINNING ANOTHER SEASON & Garden Supplier Advisory

Have to haul this little guy out of storage pretty soon. "Elmer" I call him. After the title character in the very first story I ever wrote, "Elmer, The Ant", in kindergarten. Replete with illustrations courtesy of my mother and myself via crayons. My present-day "Elmer" keeps a sharp "bug" eye overlooking my front garden each year.

How this year's garden will fare is anyone's guess. My seed starting was thwarted by some illness-related setbacks, and then I found myself without my greenhouse this year. I'd ordered a new one late last fall from "Yardiac"with the intention of putting it up this past February. It proved to be disastrous and up until a final resolution granted from on high at the company where it was ordered, I would have been stuck with it to the tune of $300. And if I chose to return it - which was only logical cause the thing was flawed from the git go - I would have had to fork over upwards of $125 for return shipping.

In haste I opted for a portable greenhouse. Actually, a good design in its conception, but a flop in it's practical application. Perhaps if the manufacturer had allowed enough of the polyweave material on either side of the zipper door, then the door could have actually zipped. Bad enough I've got rotator cuff problems, I didn't need to be yanking it out of the socket trying to zip this thing closed. As it was, after only half a dozen attempts, I could see the zipper material pulling on and away from the polyweave. At that rate, I figured three or four times in and out of the thing, zipping it open and exhausting myself from zipping it closed... and the zipper would ultimately be "no more".

So, it's winging it's way back to the warehouse of the supplier. And - as I said - after vocally duking it out with the reps and only granted a "stay" of having to execute money from my wallet to pay to return the thing, because I made a rather lengthy, public post on a rather large online gardening community which rankled the feathers of my fellow/sister gardener, sending ripples back to the company...only then did they cave and give me my due. The product was flawed in my opinion, and the opinion of the sales reps, too, I might add. Not to mention even the manufacturer agreed it needed correcting and was in the process of revising and redesigning it for sale in Fall, 2006. (Which wouldn't have done me a heckuva lot of good now.

Now, between that brouhaha and a day planner that is strictly devoted to doctors appointments and tests for this month and into next, my available-time-dance card is pretty punched with everything but gardening penciled in. I will, however, endeavor to try my best at starting some seeds, replanting perennials I had to move last fall and no doubt having to plunk down more cash than I intended (or can ill afford) on purchasing annuals. Yuk. The thought of buying a flat of 48 plants for $8 or $9 kills me when I could have started that flat and probably another with just one or two packets of seed that would have set me back all of $3 or $4! But....a gardener's gotta do..what a gardener's gotta do. Suck it up...make the most of what's out there already...pray for volunteers by the bushelful and forget about buying those new, fancy earbuds for my iPod.
Oh well, it's not like I listen to music while I'm gardening anyway. At the risk of waxing too philosophical....(which never stopped me before)...I much prefer the music of nature to keep me "humming" along in the garden.

UPDATE ON YARDIAC

A "prompt" refund to my charge account was promised - back in early April. Late April statement arrived...no refund. Okay. Gave them another month's "grace" period, which I thought was treating them way more fairly and broadminded than they originally treated me. May statment arrived. Whoopsey Daisy! No refund! Why oh why...but I decided to wait till June! Gee. whiz. Guess what? Nada refundo on el credito. Call YARDIAC and get a sales rep who says (naturally) "Not my department, can't authorize that kind of credit". "Transfer me to the president, Mr. Ambrose. Believe me, he already knows all about the situation" I assured her. After fumphing and apologizing profusely and saying (no kidding): "Boy, oh boy, when we screw up...we screw up!" Again, I asked myself: No kidding! "It'll definitely be on the July statement. I'll even fax your credit card company w/the info so you're bank will have the refund on file. I can give you a transaction number right now." Fine and Dandy. (To quote George Carlin). But the whole scenario was neither fine nor dandy. It was a pain.

July statement arriveed and with much trepadation, I opened the envelope and lo and behold (*Cue the choirs of angels in the background*)...there it was. Full refund. Plus...$10 extra for "all the trouble they caused". Yeah, I know. Ten dollars is ten dollars. But, somehow I think my "trouble" had a little higher value than that. Frankly, though, they could have kept their $10.

THE CATS