My week's work...

I finished my garden today. It was a momentous event, finishing that garden, and as I leaned on my pitchfork surveying my work, with sweat dripping off my chin and dirt coating my body, I must say that I felt entirely satisfied.

My father thought that it would be a neat trick to give me a plot of land that is actually the foundation for some old outbuilding, or perhaps a sacred Indian burial ground before it was discovered that bodies need to be several feet beneath the ground. I didn't find any bodies -- and if I had, you can bet there would be all kinds of pictures on here -- but I did manage to find a whole host of enormous rocks that took all of my might and strength to remove. Some were small, but there were three sections of what was once a medium sized boulder that I had to lift out, and as I lifted them I cursed. I did not curse quietly and under my breath; no, I cursed loudly enough that the whole of CowTown could hear me, I'm sure, and if we had a mayor or a police force, I'm sure that someone would have given me a noise violation, or at least a warning. I must stop here and say that this is one of the many, many reasons we live in the middle of nowhere, because we can pee in our back yard -- or the front, if we prefer -- and we can scream obscenities at any time of the day or night and never encounter any trouble as a result of it.

This is the last picture that I took today, although I did far more work than is here. I have everything planted and all the rows staked, as well as a trelis up for the peas to climb. My mother was somewhat upset that I didn't photograph the entire process because the photo of turned over dirt doesn't really do it justice. This garden was originally rock-filled sod which I had to remove piece by piece. After that, I added six wheelbarrow loads of the finest four-year-old red veal shit that all of Eastern Canada has to offer. Then I brought about four loads of topsoil from the load that we got two years ago, after which I had to turn the soil again, pick out the remainder of the rocks, find a trelis and set it up, create another trelis, dig seventeen thousand holes, and plant a bunch of stuff.

Projects like these really make me think about the people who lived long before us. Those people couldn't just run to the SuperCentre, grabbing an Iced Cappuccino on the way, if their gardens failed. Of course, as soon as the seeds were in the ground the anxiety came over me, and what if none of the little plants come up? I will be the laughingstock of CowTown for sure, because what the hell kind of farm girl can't plant a miniature frickin' vegetable garden?

If nothing comes up, I plan on blaming the fact that no Round-Up was sprayed in the creation of this garden.

[Rural Life, Garden, Vegetable Garden, Country Living, BackBreaking Labor]