I'm So Slow

I am feeling my age. It took me two separate days to barely fill two yard waste bags with some pruned branches and clippings from my garden. I pruned the privets, got at the honeylocust, did some artistic work on the Japanese maple, cleaned up the gardens from winter and felt productive.

But it was slow, slow work.

When I started gardening in earnest about a dozen years ago, I was younger. I had a big empty property and a lot of space to design and fill. And so much to learn.

There were many rewards, and one of them was being outside in cold early spring, digging, hauling, cutting, shoveling and moving things, then coming inside at 4 in the afternoon, muddy and bone tired. It was that combination of achy exhaustion and the satisfaction that work had been done that was so exquisite.

I long for that same feeling, but now my property is smaller -- quite small in fact -- and there is much less to do. But really, the issue is I am so much older. Things take so long now. And there are so many places to sit.

I did get down on hands and knees one day this week to move some rocks around and put a broken strawberry jar on its side in a path of pebbles.

This jar-on-its-side spewing stones idea has been overdone in many gardens, and it kind looks to me like a pot throwing up. But I had a broken jar, I had the rocks and the stony creekbed, and mostly I just wanted to be outside scrabbling around on the ground on a cold spring day like I used to.

It looks dumb, but will improve when plantings fill in and cover most of it up. It took about 15 minutes to place the jar, stuff some pebbles in it and then stand back to look.

But I felt good, and was even a little tired after, and rewarded myself with a good sit.

Small victories.