Peas, Please?!

The first thing I do after getting home from work is run out to the garden to check and see what is going on. Frequently, this is interrupted by chasing Anthony back into the backyard (note to self, new house must have fenced backyard!), hollering at him to stop digging in my veggie beds with my trowel, and hauling him into the house to wash his hands and kiss away all the fire ant bites that he got while digging in my garden (and if I wasn't his mommy, I'd say serves him right). I encourage his participation in gardening, I just don't appreciate when he tries to dig up my cucumber seedlings when there is a perfectly good sandbox to dig in. On the rare occasion that I get a few minutes peace out in the garden, I notice the new things that are happening. The tomatoes have lots of flowers and there are baby tomatoes on the paste variety that I am growing, there are new leaves everywhere, and what did my wandering eyes behold?

PEAS!



Giddiness is the best way I can describe it. I tried peas in the fall and was rewarded with one measly flower and a bunch of dead plants. So like any good gardener, I tried again. Lo and behold, it's working this time. The peas have not filled in yet, but it was all I could do not to eat the darn thing off the plant because it looked so tasty. I planted 10 seeds in January. All 10 have come up and are growing, with lots of pretty little pea flowers. I can't wait until pea pickin' time.

Dirt

Checking out the dirt

Anthony has gone down to Gramma and Papa's house for the day (and night) to spend some time with them since I have to work today and daycare is closed. Last weekend, Dad had a load of fill dirt delivered to his house to level out parts of the yard. I got a phone call a little while ago. "Did you know that little boys and dirt get along like ducks and junebugs?" I did, but it was funny anyway. Dad went on to say that Anthony had been playing in the dirt since he got there this morning and was covered from head to toe. He was only convinced to quit playing in it to come in an eat lunch. I'm sure he'll be back out there like a shot as soon as he's done eating.

He comes by this genetically. My plans for the evening actually involved picking up a bag of potting soil to finish off a flowerbed. Never mind that I have personally shoveled 3 or 4 yards of garden soil in the past couple of years. Or that I have overseen excavations of several thousand yards of dirty, nasty, stinky dirt. I love it. If I truly believed in elements, I think mine changed from water to earth. Because I am happiest when I am digging in it (the clean stuff, not the nasty stuff), smelling the smell of freshly exposed earth (again the clean stuff), and gently patting new plants into it.

It really should come as no suprise that my kid is following in my footsteps.