Blisters

 
 
4/6/98 
Gin asked me to bring up a load of compost for her  
new rose bush. From Michigan Bulb, it's a hybrid tea  
called Peace. According to the catalog it should give  
a flower that's yellow and pink pastels. 
 
I wish I could say that the tractor popped right off  
but it didn't, so I won't. I put the battery charger on it,  
grabbed the fork from it's hook on the wall, then  
walked up to the garden. 
 
The plan is to change the layout while keeping a  
maximum five foot bed width. I cut through a raised  
mound, pitching the dirt into last year's walkway,  
leaving a strip along the western fence for a few rows  
of sweet corn and interplanted pumkin. Filling a path  
between two beds in the middle of the garden gave  
me a longer plot for the herbs and mints, my cash  
crops. The earthworms were moving kinda slow yet,  
I'll pick some for the worm box in the barn  
tomorrow, trout season opens next week. 
 
I quit around lunch time to grab a quick sandwich  
then started the tractor and filled it's wagon with  
compost. I putt-putted up to the garden and parked it  
beside the arbor. Gin wouldn't be home for a couple  
more hours and there was no way I was going to  
plant her rose bush, no matter that she'd pointed out  
where she wanted it the night before, if I put it in the  
ground, it would be in the wrong spot! I went back to  
forking. 
 
The old paths had grown over with grass, I forked  
the sod clumps up and layed them upside down to  
dry out, I'll shake them out tomorrow and deposit the  
grass roots in the compost pile before raking the  
mounds level. I dug a hole for the rose when Gin  
came home to verify the spot, then shoveled the  
wagon load of compost over the area for her while  
she planted the bush. The sun set as I wheeled the  
barrow full of hand tools to the shed, time for chores. 
 
My hands were soft from the winter's ease and are  
now on the point of blisters under the carpenter  
calluses. There are many more beds to prepare before  
I go to my next job. The weather man is calling for  
rain tomorrow night and I need to get the onions,  
potatoes and greens planted, these hands will either  
toughen up or bleed by then. This garden has taken  
it's share of my blood, sweat, and tears, payment for  
all the food it's given us. The seeds that will soon be  
sown, grow to a ripe old age (in plant years), then die  
for their masters deserve as much.