Ahh, spring is reminding us that she is nearby, just a little tilt away, and that there’ll be grass to hold the mud together. The kids, cats, and cows have spring fever. Oh, you, too? Even if I didn’t notice the earlier light, the cat reminds me at 5 a.m. with a “mee-out!” that the season is changing. And, last night, our daughter commented just before dinner that, “It can’t be dinner time! It’s still daytime!”
It has been so beautiful that being inside not only seems a sin, it is absolutely impossible. We had the back door open all Friday and Saturday. The kids squelched their feet in mud over and over, rinsing them in a pan of water, challenging each other to the muddiest, squishiest toes. We ate breakfast on the south patio on Saturday. It was 30-some degrees, but that sun has his strength back, and it was warm enough for sitting at 8 a.m.
And then, Sunday, snow. Of course. It’s bound to happen. So, on these days when the mud is buried under winter’s persistence, we get out the white paper. It will soon be a collage as colorful as a garden. My mom’s idea, begun a week ago, and still keeping us busy. The Gurney’s seed catalog came and was soon full of little x’s marking all of the plants for the Wish Garden. Pomegranates, pumpkins, turnips, lupine, cherries, pansies, watermelon. And then out come the scissors, snip, snip, as quick as picking peas, the colors fall to the table and are sorted into their proper envelopes: trees, veggies, fruit, flowers.
After sorting all those pictures, our daughter knows for sure what the words say and can find them on the grocery list, too! Shopping after sorting was a hands-on review. “Find the veggie list, and cross off the word that starts with o, for onion,” I asked, and she did, one fruit and veggie after another. And her eyes went wide when she connected the carrot, turnip, chard she held in her hand with the picture she’d cut out earlier. We’ve been eating this food, but now, “I can grow this, Mom!”
On her bedroom door she has taped ‘the front garden,’ which is ‘planted’ with fruit and flowers. It is a collage of reds, yellows, oranges, purples, greens, and pinks. She hasn’t finished the back garden, the trees and veggies, yet, but the paper and envelopes wait on her table for tomorrow. I’m tempted by the snowy day to lie out paper rows across the living room floor, glue color all over, and walk among them.
I am excited, too, despite the fact that we have all of about ten feet of ground, barely a row wide, prepared for a garden. We began digging the fall we became pregnant, and still haven’t gotten back to it. Perhaps our daughter will inspire us to plant at least a small collage. We may not have any choice. Grandma? Grandpa? Are you available for the summer?