Planting the garden

My mom was always saying she was going to plant a garden, but it seemed life got in the way. This fact is sort of odd if you knew that my mother was raised on a farm where planting was such a natural rhythm of life that no one thought about it, they just did it. A friend of mine is wanting to get back into the cottage garden business again so I hired her to plant a butterfly garden in my front yard. She put the plants in yesterday. This morning before dawn, I opened the shutters to see the newly planted flowers all standing at attention, waiting to grow and to give me great joy over the coming months.

Then I came upstairs and saw that Japan’s nuclear reactor had another explosion and that 50 brave workers were still there trying to contain the damage but that this situation had grown from grave to catastrophic. News from a colleague says they are safe but concerned. I’m concerned too.

Yesterday, when I offered Osmocote to my friend she said she preferred to do the garden organically. And I said I do too, but all of the gardeners I had met used it, and she said, it forces the blooms rather than lets them occur naturally. Nuclear reactors – nuclear power – all sitting on a ring of fire island in the middle of the ocean – was this sound judgment? Was this long-term thinking?

We plant our gardens in the hope we will reap the harvest. My thoughts are on Japan this morning.

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