Gardening

One of the things that enchanted us about the house when we moved in back in 2004 was the rock garden in the front and the flat lawn in the back with fruit trees, raspberry bushes and space for an herb garden. We had all kinds of plans for maintaining and expanding the space, and for a while -- when we had more money and time -- we did. Then I spent the summer writing a book, and the summer after that on a book tour, and then we had a kid and so we used the excuse that the kid was preventing us from gardening.

So our gardening has deteriorated over the last few years to paying workers to do massive cleanups twice a year (because I don't want Drew standing on a ladder and trying to prune the trees and risk falling and breaking his neck) and keeping up with the weeding in between. Which we barely do because, let's face it, we'd rather be out doing fun things on weekends instead of pulling weeds that seem to come back the second we yank them. This was going to be the summer, we told ourselves, that Rachel would finally be big enough to really help us in the garden.

I had a chance to test that today, because while working from home today I saw the backyard lawn was getting tufty again (a week after we arraned for one of those massive cleanups) and the roses in the front really needed plucking and spraying. Since I don't want to spend our weekend doing all that, I decided that Rachel and I would tackle the gardening tonight. She got right down to it and didn't even complain about not being able to bike or play on the playground or get frozen yogurt. For which I was very grateful.

While I mowed the front lawn, Rachel plucked ALL the dead dandelion stems from the strip of grass between our house and neighbor Fay's. Then she dumped all the dead roses I handed her into the green bucket, and decided to dig in the dirt for a while and exclaimed happily when she found ROOTS underneath the soil. As soon as we were done with the front, Rachel announced, "I'm going to go inside for a while," and proceeded to make me a valentine/Mother's Day card while I mowed and edged the back (a tiring task that made me realize just how much effort Drew puts into it). The whole thing, front and back, took about an hour -- longer than I thought it would. Twilight was just beginning to fall when I finished up, and I felt the soft air and looked around me, quietly satisfied. I came into the house with a handful of roses and asked Rachel how many she wanted for her bedroom, since she had been such a great helper, and she replied, "all of them!"

So now there's a vase of red roses and one yellow on her dresser. I also announced that since we'd both worked hard, she would get to have juice with dinner and I'd have hard cider.

It was bath night, and I didn't get Rachel down until 9:50 p.m. -- but it was worth it. I won't have to weed or mow for at least another week, and everything really does look neat and pretty.

Oh, and when I was done putting Rachel to sleep, I mopped the kitchen floor.

***

Rachel does a hilarious imitation of Lila, a unicorn in "Barbie Swan Lake" who can be a bit dramatic at times. In one scene she said, exaggeratedly, "I know. It's all OVER. Bye-BYE, world!" Rachel loves saying this at least once a day.

"Which one of your friends is the most dramatic?" I asked at dinner tonight after she had done the Lila imitation.

"Um, that would be...ME!" she said. "I'm the most dramatic. I'm the drama queen!"

Oh, let's hope not.