As I See It: A Good Day's Work

So I meant to write this Monday, but it was much too late and I was way too exhausted to even think about writing it. However, I hope you enjoy the pictures and the story. Please excuse the weird spacing that accompanies the pictures in my blog whenever I include them in a post. For some reason my blog refuses to cooperate when I try to fix the spacing. Dang it!

As I mentioned before, this last weekend I went to my parents' house in Idaho to help out. It's been a tough year for my parents, well for our family in general, but especially for my parents. My dad has been having some health problems which make it difficult for him to do many of the things he normally does. As such, it was up to us kids to help plant the garden on Monday.

Planting a garden is something my parents have done pretty much my entire life and even before my time. I'm sure it's been passed through the generations. Nevertheless, it's been awhile since I've helped with the planting of said garden, probably because I live a few hours away and am not always at the house at the right time. Until this year. What a satisfying experience it was!

There's something so refreshing about getting on your hands and knees and working in the soil. I took great delight in digging the holes for each plant to go in, mixing the "blue water" a.k.a. Miracle Grow, hauling it across the yard to the garden and placing each plant or seed in the ground. My dad kept giving my sister and me tips about the plants, a few secrets he's learned over the years. My three nephews (and later on my other nephew and niece) thought it was the coolest activity ever to plant a garden. They especially loved the night crawlers we found as we dug in the dirt. Yup, typical boys.

My sister's current yard doesn't allow for her to have a garden, so they haven't had the garden-planting experience yet. My dad winked at me and said the kids didn't even realize they were working. And they didn't. Well, until they got tired and decided to go play football with my younger brother instead, but we still appreciated their help.

When all the plants were in (including the row of beans I painstakingly planted by hand one inch apart, not realizing my dad's way of planting--throw the seeds into the row and cover them up--was much easier than my mom's. We'll see which one grows better.), my dad brought my grandpa's old tiller over to re-do the rows. I was pretty sure this wasn't on the approved activities list for his heart condition, and my brother was in the house, so I it was up to me to supervise. What I didn't bargain on was how much I'd enjoy it. Or how sore it would make me later, but it's the satisfying kind of sore. I couldn't make the old tiller turn around or take it out of gear, but I did help it go from row to row, with Dad's supervision, and was pleased to see how nice my handiwork looked. I wish I had taken a picture of that, but alas I did not.

My brother and my nephew hard at work planting the onions.

Now that I was involved with planting the garden, I feel a certain sense of ownership and find myself wanting to go out and water and weed it to help the plants grow. Alas, it's too long of a drive to do those activities on a regular basis. But I'm pretty sure those who are still there can take care of it.

Here's a few pictures documenting the event. Again, I apologize for the spacing issues. Someday I hope my blog learns to play nicely again.

Here we are just at the beginning stages of planting. My dad is demonstrating proper hole-digging technique.

Not sure why little P is looking so sassy here, but then again, his sister was the queen of sass, and both his parents have it too, so perhaps it runs in the family. :)