end of day

And last night, as I finished up and started putting away my garden tools, I walked around for a final inspection.

The astilbe is already shooting out of the ground and my bleeding heart is already at least a foot high. Rocket snaps that I threw into a little bed in the back survived through what was a very cold winter. They're putting out little shoots from the base of the woody stump.

Plants put in three years ago in areas where I still haven't gotten around to amending the soil better are coming up with bold confidence, better than I've seen them look. The small hostas have about six to eight inches of growth, and the big, lumbering platains are just starting to break through the dirt. The blue hostas, the last to come up, are sill buried.

The evening sun, filtered only by tree limbs and evergreens, played on the forsythia and its yellow flowers, as well as on the clumps of yellow daffodils. Still work to do, I thought, as I took a final look. And yet, I brought again some order, some temporary conceit upon these soils. Of course, making gardens is to make an illusion. But it is an illusion that makes me feel a quiet sense of pleasure and relaxation.

Penny, the Airedale, was in the backyard briefly yesterday and she caught a baby mole. How happy she was to play with it, then put it in her mouth and parade with her victim's legs hanging out. She was bred to kill vermin, and the mole fit the bill perfectly. Franklin as well. This is instinct.

Get me outside, in the dirt, and I lose rational control. I quit making choices and start happily, without thought, doing work, moving through the items. Losing sunlight, I finish, grateful for a weekend like this one.