Tuesday, March 27, 2012

It Sure Feels Like Winter

Passed on my walk; ice circles frozen around fenceposts. Click to enlarge.

I paid a man $120 to turn up lawn in the front yard, wheelbarrow black soil to it, make a flower bed, and move some rosebushes and perennials into it. That was in the fall right before the septic tank got dug in, and it was touch and go whether the flowers would be moved in time. I had to get them out of there, or see them torn up by a monstrous machine.

Scott said, “Well, could you replace those bushes and perennials for that price?”

Maybe I could, and it would have relieved some of the pressure I felt about getting them moved — if only I didn’t actually care about the plants themselves. I care about each plant and want to see it in a safe place, not dug up, or tilled under when Scott turns the flower garden behind the house into lawn this summer. It’s not just the cost of replacing plants that concerned me; it's the life of the plant itself.

There are many more plants to be moved this spring, so I'll need to enlarge the flowerbed we made last fall.

Now I’m looking at my flowers back there — what a treat to see them again, even just their dry brown stems — without the snowy blanket — and then at the space in the front yard and figuring out the best places to put them. Because of course I want to save every one; not even one ubiquitous shasta daisy shall be ploughed under on my watch, if I can find a new location for it.

I say that now. When I'm buried under an avalanche of dirt I may say to hell with it. But that's unlikely.