Entirely Delegated

Well, the garden has been started, and no thanks at all to me.

Because of debilitating but hopefully temporary back pain, there was no way I was going to be hoeing, raking, and planting seeds yesterday. Luckily, I have three willing helpers.

Jack would have helped, but he was napping. Just as well, as the help of a two-year-old is negligible at best and destructive at worst.

A. was willing mostly because he would be happy if I never again announced that I needed to drive to the Big Village for perishable food. Or, as he so eloquently put it, "I'll do it if I never have to hear about you driving 50 miles for five calories worth of leaves."

The man does have a way with words.

Whatever the reason, he did all the work, with Cubby and Charlie's enthusiastic if inexpert assistance. I sat in a plastic chair outside the garden and managed the operations.

In the end, the work itself was laughably easy. Accustomed as we are to the heavy, clay-based soil in the garden at Blackrock, which is choked by weeds even at this early stage of the season, prepping the light, sandy, and almost weed-free soil here seemed like a game instead of a chore.

At least, that's what A. tells me. I didn't actually wield the rake myself, but it sure looked a lot easier. He didn't even use a shovel to turn the soil over. Before I knew it, there were several rows planted to carrots, radishes, lettuce, arugula, snap peas, shelling peas, and "a lot of that gross-ass kohlrabi."

That was A.'s comment anyway. He just doesn't have the soul of a true vegetable gardener. Probably because he would always rather eat a lamb than a vegetable.

Lucky for him, I happened to have a large quantity of lamb already cooking for dinner that night (hooray for after-Easter sales!), so he was suitably rewarded for his labors.

And I will be rewarded for my excellent labor management skills by many pounds of fresh vegetables right outside my door in just a few weeks. Yay.