HELLO SPRING!

Spring is quickly becoming a highly anticipated holiday at the Casa. We look forward to buds and ladybugs, green grass and purple flowers. It is the awakening, the time in which we see whether a year’s worth of planning, potting and plotting actually produce a bud or two. And it always seems as if everything and anything could go wrong. In the small time we’ve lived here, the garden has changed so much.

“There is too much blank sky where a tree once stood.” — Jesmyn Ward, Sing, Unburied, Sing

When we first moved in, our neighbor at the time was friends with the former owner. She told us the former owner would call every now and then and ask if we had done anything to the yard. It was surprising, rather strange now we think about it. But it struck us as funny, mostly; the former owner nosing around trying to see what we changed, what we uprooted and replanted. I can’t remember how we reacted? At the time, we hadn’t thought much about changing the garden. But I also remember thinking, while we were cutting down unwanted trees and clearing stumps, raking flower beds and relining the grass, FUCK IT, this is our yard now! We can shape, plant, replant, redo, remove and reseed whatever the hell we please. We anticipate spring. It’s humbling, to anticipate spring. Maybe it means you think things are finally going right…at least when it comes to the garden.

The garden is calming. The garden is inviting. Birds visit the garden and flap their approval. Flowers make daily bouquets to place around the house. Our dog eats the fertilizer. And then makes more. We compost. We still worry about irrigation, soil balance and weather. We can’t ever seem to grow tomatoes. But flowers, we can grow flowers, and spring means the flowers start to get happy. Really happy.

“I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.” — Pablo Neruda, “Every Day You Play”