Spring Fever
Sometimes the best-laid garden plans encourage creative pranks.
Even the best-laid garden plans encourage creative pranks.
The first of April, and it still was cold. Icy snow tried its best to melt. And the phrase “cabin fever” came to mind. This, my friends, is what ailed a Kentucky girl living in the beautiful state of Michigan with its four seasons. It just doesn’t seem balanced when winter seems to outlast the others.
But April is also when dear neighbors generously pass along their seed and plant catalogs to keep this old brain turning.
I began planning for a new garden, but it wouldn’t work in such a small yard unless my garden hutch was moved to the opposite side. This shed was handcrafted of cedar. My husband and I had hauled it here on the bed of a truck in weather much worse than this.
Channeling the strength and spirit of the Little Engine That Could (and with a couple of long boards and strong will) we moved the hutch across the melting snow. It took three days.
Now my gardening plan could grow! The spot where my hutch once stood would be a perfect hummingbird and butterfly area. Research, reading and replanting became my new focus.
Another mostly shaded area caught my eye because it would be perfect for naturalistic planting. I would
try my luck with herbs in the old vegetable garden. Their presence should wake up the whole yard.
And I found a new home for the bluebird house I bought when we moved here five years ago.
From sunup to sundown, we removed tree roots, transplanted perennials, and amended and added new soil. The work was difficult but I really loved how it all came together.
Then early one morning as I rushed among the three gardens like a crazy woman, my husband said he had just seen a bluebird fly into the bluebird house. I stopped at a distance: “I see it! I see it.” Excited, I tried to keep calm so it wouldn’t fly away.
“I can’t believe it,” I said. “The bluebird is looking right at me!”
My husband chuckled, then confessed that it had been in there for days. He had put an old ceramic bluebird in my birdhouse.
A prank like this will either make a lady crazier or give her a good laugh. I chose the latter.
Right now a family of hummingbirds and three monarch butterflies are welcome guests in my garden. Every day brings a new surprise as I relax surrounded by God’s beauty. And I know that someday I will get that bluebird!