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 | Life is all about balance and I’m a failure at it. I’ve never mastered the art of scheduling, allotting time for work and play. Work seems to pervade every time and play is always something I’ll get too. Good intentions, that’s me. I’m full of them. It’s painfully obvious I can’t serve more than one master at a time. If the house is a mess, the gardens are divine and vice-versa. If I hook, everything suffers inside and out. I can’t seem to do it all, make time for a bit of everything and it’s frustrating! A couple weeks of humidity and rain and the gardens were a mess and when I take the time to beat them back to submission, my house suffers. Lately I’ve been hooking more than anything so the inside and outside of my home went to pot. Right now I’m back to hiding if the doorbell rings and I live in terror every time the pups bark that someone might have pulled into the yard. |
Storm Arthur curbed the garden excitement. My precious plants were beaten up and pushed to the ground like a run in with a school yard bully. My peonies lost their petals, stripped naked by the winds and pounding rain. Then to make matters worse, a herd of deer came down and devoured every one of my hydrangea buds on the big bush in the back that usually drips with blue rapture. The other plant in the front yard has a few flower heads left, thank-you for small favours you four legged poachers! I suppose I should be thankful they left the hostas alone, knock on wood, they haven’t annihilated those yet as usually I have nothing but a bunch of chewed off stocks, all the leaves chomped off like a big salad. What a barren, pitiful sight for a gardener’s sore eyes, when hostas, as large as table tops, are mowed down to a jagged mess of stems.
Maybe I have to think long and hard about this venture I’ve undertaken. Is it too much for me? Am I out of my mind to think I can have it all? Balance home domestic stuff and garden? Can I learn to budget time for everything that needs to be done? Nature doesn’t come with guarantees, if I schedule time in the gardens it can be crushed by a blistering heat or rain. The perfect garden might be a pipe dream, a game for the young and energetic who can leap tall buildings with a single bound.
I garden for my own pleasure, no other reason. But does the beauty that I revel in, the accomplishments of a job well done, outweigh the need for a clean house and human contact? Wouldn’t I derive more pleasure out of sipping ice tea on the deck with a friend, instead of being up to my elbows in the dirt? I see a lot of people in the shop so I’m not exactly a hermit but to spend all of my free time doing manual labour, is it fair? Can flowers, no matter how beautiful, take the place of social interaction, of fun?
I really love to garden. I love the smell and coolness of the earth. I like to plant and watch things grow. I like what it does to my body; the stretching and bending, all great to keep this frame limber. Pushing and pulling the wheelbarrow, digging with the spade and trowel. Unfortunately a garden is like a baby, needy and time consuming, sucking the life out of my free time teat.
I brought the Initially Yours Letter D home to hook this past weekend and I had to exercise a lot of control to leave it alone. I had to be firm, “work before play soldier!” If I didn’t clean up the kitchen and do some laundry I’d be going commando this week. I’m so far behind in my chores I think about moving out to the garage, it’s cleaner! So I forced myself to do things around the house, freed the counter-tops from the piles of dishes and did a few loads of laundry that were spilling out into the hallway. Then the rest of the day was dedicated to the gardens. I worked until the sun set, capturing back 75% of the territory sieged by the weeds. At the end of the day I happily crawled into the house covered head to toe in sweat, streaked dirt. It was glorious!
Sometimes I think maybe the gardens are bigger than me. At least bigger than the time I have to work them. I think maybe I should spend time growing a social life, something that lasts more than one season and doesn’t involve so much back breaking work. I’m never going to be a runner, my mother’s name for people who can’t stay home, but something to plan and look forward to once a week, a couple of times a month like a meal out or invites in could be the catalyst to help keep things in check in my house, beat back the cob webs, be company ready.
But, then I think about all my precious perennials that I’ve nurtured for the last 15 years. How can I give up my flower babies? Maybe it’s as simple as getting some help. Maybe that guy I see in various gardens in the Bay could be employed for a bit of maintenance in my backyard. Free up my time for the domestic chores that will allow me to invite friends over for an afternoon tea, an evening of relaxing, maybe some hooking or pot luck. At this point as the summer quickly sails by, I need to do something before I mourn the loss of another season where all I did was work. Then I look at the faces of all my little beauties and think, I'll work on balance next year......
Maybe I have to think long and hard about this venture I’ve undertaken. Is it too much for me? Am I out of my mind to think I can have it all? Balance home domestic stuff and garden? Can I learn to budget time for everything that needs to be done? Nature doesn’t come with guarantees, if I schedule time in the gardens it can be crushed by a blistering heat or rain. The perfect garden might be a pipe dream, a game for the young and energetic who can leap tall buildings with a single bound.
I garden for my own pleasure, no other reason. But does the beauty that I revel in, the accomplishments of a job well done, outweigh the need for a clean house and human contact? Wouldn’t I derive more pleasure out of sipping ice tea on the deck with a friend, instead of being up to my elbows in the dirt? I see a lot of people in the shop so I’m not exactly a hermit but to spend all of my free time doing manual labour, is it fair? Can flowers, no matter how beautiful, take the place of social interaction, of fun?
I really love to garden. I love the smell and coolness of the earth. I like to plant and watch things grow. I like what it does to my body; the stretching and bending, all great to keep this frame limber. Pushing and pulling the wheelbarrow, digging with the spade and trowel. Unfortunately a garden is like a baby, needy and time consuming, sucking the life out of my free time teat.
I brought the Initially Yours Letter D home to hook this past weekend and I had to exercise a lot of control to leave it alone. I had to be firm, “work before play soldier!” If I didn’t clean up the kitchen and do some laundry I’d be going commando this week. I’m so far behind in my chores I think about moving out to the garage, it’s cleaner! So I forced myself to do things around the house, freed the counter-tops from the piles of dishes and did a few loads of laundry that were spilling out into the hallway. Then the rest of the day was dedicated to the gardens. I worked until the sun set, capturing back 75% of the territory sieged by the weeds. At the end of the day I happily crawled into the house covered head to toe in sweat, streaked dirt. It was glorious!
Sometimes I think maybe the gardens are bigger than me. At least bigger than the time I have to work them. I think maybe I should spend time growing a social life, something that lasts more than one season and doesn’t involve so much back breaking work. I’m never going to be a runner, my mother’s name for people who can’t stay home, but something to plan and look forward to once a week, a couple of times a month like a meal out or invites in could be the catalyst to help keep things in check in my house, beat back the cob webs, be company ready.
But, then I think about all my precious perennials that I’ve nurtured for the last 15 years. How can I give up my flower babies? Maybe it’s as simple as getting some help. Maybe that guy I see in various gardens in the Bay could be employed for a bit of maintenance in my backyard. Free up my time for the domestic chores that will allow me to invite friends over for an afternoon tea, an evening of relaxing, maybe some hooking or pot luck. At this point as the summer quickly sails by, I need to do something before I mourn the loss of another season where all I did was work. Then I look at the faces of all my little beauties and think, I'll work on balance next year......
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There is always something blooming in my gardens, filling me with joy.
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