One of my gardening friends invited me to be a sharecropper, so a couple of Saturdays ago I helped with planting. Inside an elegant moose-proof enclosure, I knelt between precisely mounded rows to plant radishes, turnips, lettuces, kale, garlic, and more–more than I can remember but don’t have to because the gardener’s head contains a complete catalog and farmer’s almanac.
How I’ll earn a share of the crops remains to be seen. A kindergarten child could have contributed as much as I did the first day, because the gardener had prepared the soil weeks before and had the planting well underway. When Homer had sundress weather the following week, I offered to water, but the polymathic gardener had already installed an underground irrigation system set on timers.
Yesterday I noticed that some of the rows I planted veer out of line, and in several places there’s sprouting evidence of seed spills (it takes practice to tap just one minuscule seed at a time from the packet). I’m hoping this won’t be so noticeable as the garden matures.
I hope the sandhill cranes will continue their pas de duex in the meadow.
Copyright 2013-2014 Genie Hambrick
The Cheechako Diaries 
Peas too I hope!
Yes, peas!