The Bermuda Triangle is inhabiting our garden
I’ve taken to the garden with gusto, but it seems some things I’ve planted will never grow. Why?
Because two hand shovels aren’t going to miraculously turn into tomatoes, no matter how much fertiliser and compost they receive.
I mislaid one shovel when digging holes for my tomato plants. It was gone, apparently growing legs and running off. I removed all the soil, churned up the ground and couldn’t find it, gave up and used a second shovel instead. I turned around and it had moved on as well. Hubby accuses me of leaving gardening gear, especially secateurs, lying around the garden. But my excuse is that they take off when my back is turned.
The mystery of the hand shovels hasn’t been solved. One did reappear in a bin of weeds, but the first one to leg it has never been seen again.
There are plenty of other things over the years which have disappeared into the garden, or a paddock or two.
But recently a discarded exercycle made a reappearance from the murky depths beneath an ancient walnut tree. I wasn’t the one keen on exercise. I have never have been. It was hubby who saw it as a way to keep fit and trim once we moved off the farm. It was set up in a spare bedroom and I avoided looking in case it tried to lure me to give it a go. Apparently hubby got sick of giving it a go, or the machine gave up, but whatever, the outcome, I’ve now discovered, was a life in the wilderness. Yes, the exercycle was dead and buried, along with the fitness regime.
But we’ve had the walnut tree lopped, the 100-year-old tree reduced to a very low level, with just enough of its massive trunk left to support a tree house and a swing. The culling was needed to allow more light into the section. And we’re not totally heartless — another huge 100-yearold walnut remains.
Once the tree was down and the old, gnarly wisteria hacked back, there it was in the light, a lonely exercycle. It’s certainly not fit to be part of a fitness routine again, but it’s hardly a desirable garden ornament either.
Other items have become buried, including hubby’s set of false teeth on the farm at Kumeti Rd.
In the crop paddock of chow he roared “get away back,” and a few other well-known country expressions, who to, I’m not quite sure. Perhaps to Blackie, our faithful dog, or maybe me. Neither of us stayed around to find out.
And no matter how hard hubby hunted, those elusive false teeth never appeared. Not even after 400 hooves had ploughed the crop paddock after chomping down on their chowmoulier. If you’ve seen a dairy crop paddock after the herd have been through you’ll understand there was no way those elusive gnashers were going to re-emerge from the mud. And if they had, who would want to wear them?
The biggest burial loss was my engagement ring, destined to be part of our new cowshed yard after a hectic concreting. I didn’t notice the loss until later that night and by then there was no way hubby was digging up his new yard. So instead we claimed insurance and purchased, no not a new ring, but a couple of cows for the herd.
Many years later, hubby with children in tow, purchased a new engagement ring. Heavens only knows what Maurice Miller thought when he trailed into his beautiful Dannevirke shop accompanied by the boys. But he was too polite to say anything.
I have to confess I’ve been guilty of burying one or two things in the garden, deliberately. One in particular, a very noisy little musical instrument one of our youngest boys, big men now, received from Santa at the Eketa¯huna Rugby Club’s kids Christmas party. It was plastic and made a heck of a noise. The kids loved it and so long as they played it while I was at the cowshed in the morning, no problem. But what really got my goat was the wailing, screeching it made when I was trying to relax after a long day. The last straw came when it was left lying on the floor and I stood on it. It was sharp, I was cross, but a hole dug in the garden was the best place for it. I think the kids must have been sick of it too because there wasn’t any desperate hunt to find it.