Hurry up and GROW!

Have you ever just stopped and *looked* at newly sprouted plants?

Radishes are heartbreakingly lovely, leaves puffed out to the sides like green butterfly wings. They always make me giggle for some reason, as though I'm also enjoying their stretching into new life.

Sunflowers, elongated and strong, always reach for the light (I have one sprout in a glass brandy snifter in the kitchen window that I can turn away from the light three times a day and still find it turned with its face back towards the sun).

Okra gives no sign as to what its future shape will be, leaves sitting round and fat and full. You can hardly believe that such circular elegance will eventually evolve into spiny pointed beasts. But mmm, they taste good. Gumbo, anyone?

Green beans are the testosterone of the patch, always overachieving with even the first breaking of the ground. It's never happy for a single leaf juncture, no, it demands attention with tiered leaves.

I like to play the guessing game with my plants. I rarely put markers on sprout pots and just wait for them to bless me with the happy identification. The Gardener's Maternity Room, I suppose. Is it a girl? Is it a boy? No, it's PUMPKIN!

The waiting is always the worst part for me. I like the weeding and the digging and the pruning and picking and cooking and all the clean up work involved. The in-between planting and picking is what gets to me.

I just hate waiting for them to pop up and say "Hello, I'm here!" And then you have to wait for them to grow grow grow so they'll produce food and seed. Drives me bananas. I'm normally a relatively mellow person, but I lack the serenity of patience.

I want my garden, and I want it NOW.

It was getting to me a bit on Wednesday. I had survived my neurology and MRI appointments, and wanted to DO. Unfortunately, we weren't all on the same page and it's a very long book. I awakened somewhat grumpy, and wandered out for my first morning sunshine. Quite often I do it before anything else (and oh, the joys of a privacy fence so that I don't have to get dressed to do it!), and it has become a necessary part of my daily routine to just pause and sit and listen to the world and watch what happens around me. With my health, I need all the serenity I can absorb.

With grumpiness in charge, I went for my dandelion break. And stopped.

Peeking out of Thing 1's pot ... leaves! A sprout! Jubilation! No ... TWO! We have TWO! And Thing 2's flowerpot! Oh, LOOK! Another sprout here, and here, and .....

Giddy. I went from grumpy to bouncing. Look! Growth! Green things! My vocabulary went straight to an elementary education level as I giggled. Babies, and new sprouts/flowers. Get me every time.

Note to self: Beg, buy, borrow or steal the means to enroll in Tai Chi classes.

This morning, I awakened feeling a little better, at least until I moved. Arthritis was acting up, and several joints utterly refused to get with the program. Grumpy moves back in. Limped carefully outside.

I walked into a whole new world of green.

Both of the kids' pots are covered with sweet little green zinnia leaves. ALL of the radish pots have little green butterflies coating the surface. Okra! Hey, that's squash! And a pumpkin sprout!

Omigod, is that a tiny blossom starting on the zucchini? And on one of the strawberries?

I hurt too much to truly do anything extensive, but I reveled in the new life outside while staunchly avoiding the news. Sometimes you can only take so much.

A shopping trip set us up with humus, manure (and hours of fun with the kids over the "You're buying COW POOP? EWWW!), and a bag of Magic Earth on recommendation. I peeked at the label, perked up, and said what the hell. They'll all get mixed into the tilled soil for the garden plots to help break up some of the really odd soil, and help raise the beds. A new tomato plant, a different type from the others and once again I looked a fool with my face buried in the leaves.

Now ... hurry up and GROW!