Well Good Morning to You Too

Oh.  Hello.

I didn’t see you there.

No, it’s fine.  Of course I didn’t think that just because I took a little time-out that the world should stop turning.  I mean, there are lunches to be made and dictators to topple and yes, teeth will continue to fall out and hey even the sprouts are defying logic and breaking through the chilly dirt.

And ho, what’s that I feel? Are these tendrils unfurling from my own stiff limbs as if spurned on by the heady scent of sun-kissed dirt?

Hibernating? No, not me.  For there is work to be done.

And I’ve been busy.

Doing, you know, stuff.

Important, stuff.

Like, making sure my youngest is dressed to fight dragons.

And prepping Grandma for some good, old-fashioned village – pillaging.

Well gosh, now you’re making me feel like all I’ve been doing is trying to be a viking.  But you know they have cool ships with handsome, half-clad men rowing in time to jaunty sea shanties?

And ocean breezes that would gently blow through my luxurious locks.

The glint of the sun winking off a newly sharpened hatchet.

The squawk of an albatross in search of an Ancient Mariner…

Hey, shame on you.  Do not encourage my digressions.

For there is work to be done once dragons lay slain.  A newly acquired village will need tidying.  And so it was that the local population was enslaved and put to work waking up the sleepy garden.

They raked and they hoed and eventually the garlic showed through, it’s sweet tendrils reaching towards the light of the weak spring sun.

They whispered sweet nothings of encouragement, coaxing irises from beneath frozen blankets.

The raspberries too would prosper under new management.  The field, an unwieldy brier patch of mayhem,

was hacked into submission.  A viking must insist upon order from her berries.

No more would raspberries be left to wither on the vine.

And the viking goddess (that’d be me) saw that it was good.  And so it was that she posted sentries in the treetops . . .

And high-tailed it back inside.

For her hands were getting cold.

Happy Birthday, Baby

Oops, that’s not my birthday baby.  Here she is.

Lest there be any confusion, her name is Acadia, not Lorax.  But boy oh boy does she speak for the trees.  If by speaking for the trees you mean throwing down on the lawn and kicking and screaming in protest of a few defenseless branches.

Sweet Acadia.  She doesn’t always manage the birthday with a smile.

Even the Mardi Gras beads didn’t make up for her extreme displeasure over my choice of birthday restraint back in her earlier fling-self-from-rooftops days.

Last weekend we moved some things around in the yard, in preparation for the big backyard birthday blow-out.  We are also weighing options for a still-hypothetical garden relocation project.  Maybe, just maybe the soil on the sunnier side favors the production of girl flowers?

In the heat of the preparations a large plastic climbing object was moved across the yard.  A couple of overhanging branches were cut to make room for playtimes free of eye-pokes.  A couple of branches.  Cut a couple of inches.

The planet patrol lost all control.  Her face turned red with rage.  She stomped her feet.  She clenched her fists. She announced that she WOULD NOT STAND HERE ONE MORE MINUTE AND WATCH US KILL THE TREES.  Then my dear little Lorax flung herself on the ground and cried her heart out.

Eventually the heart-heaving sobs quieted, but she continued to mope around, forlorn, staring at the mistreated grass and communing with the flowers that somehow had the misfortune to fall under the evil reign of her own parents.

Sweet sensitive soul. In her haste to castigate us she overlooked the fact that she claims as parents two of the biggest tree hugging hippies one could find.  Never mind that we committed to diligently recycle and compost and carry reusable bags.  No sound arguments would make it through whilst the sap on her friends’ wounds still oozed fresh.

We appeased her by letting her plant flowers, however many and wherever she thought best. It turned out the flowers felt they should be randomly scattered strategically placed in beds all over the lawn.

And with that the Lorax was back in business. She grabbed hold of that big old shovel and set right to work restoring balance to the planet.

She set sister Kira to task too.

While the irises were busy contemplating the next stop in their total domination of the yard, I questioned Acadia about her birthday wish list.  Turns out that there are, in fact, a couple of things that might make her stony facade break into smile.  They are, not necessarily in this order:

  1. Clothes for her dolls.
  2. A horse.
  3. And a promise on behalf of her parents to leave her leafy large friends alone.