Thursday, January 17, 2019

Just Another Work Day

The sun was out, everyone's shoelaces were tied, and it was time to get to work. 
There was pruning and planting to be done... and some balancing on a rock which scared Grandma, even though the acrobat assured me that she was being very very very careful. 
Holding the pot steady was as much fun as filling it with fancy soil.
The Garden Club Kids were careful not to waste.  The potting mixture held firm in their hands. There was very little on the ground.  Carrot seeds are teeny tiny little things, placed an inch apart, one per hole, separated by two fingers held tightly together.  It was math and planning and fine motor control and it was so much fun.
Using Grandma's pruning shears is a privilege reserved for the bigger kids.  
Deciding what was alive and what needed to be removed was a challenge. We were encouraged to see that new buds were forming; cutting off the detritus allows more of the nutrients to go where they are useful.  "Plants are really smart."
The second raised bed is covered in a field of parsley.  
Within its confines, we found a worm, which delighted Grandma no end.  I explained the usefulness of the worm to the structure of the soil, but the kids were more interested in giving him a tour of the garden.  Although he was a most interesting and unusual friend, I managed to convince them to return him from whence he came.
There is nothing more dramatic than the sigh of a disappointed boy who is desperate to share a treasure with his class.  It took some parsley snacks to right the world on its axis once more.
"When do you go to the middle school?" wondered an anxious 5th grader, projecting into his future.  I had to admit that my presence there was less frequent and less intense.  We agreed that there are many losses as one grows up, as I silently wondered if I could possible clone myself.  

2 comments:

  1. My first class of first graders are now in the fifth grade. Each grade asks when I will come read to their class. One fourth grader this week asked me to come read chapter books to her class since they are too big for the storybooks I read to first graders. If only I had more time and energy and the teachers were willing to have me take up their valuable class time. That's a whole lot of ifs...

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    Replies
    1. Occasionally, I get to read to the upper grades. You are so right - their time is precious. But there is group reading and I love being a part of it.
      And then there's the fact that they remember us fondly <3 That warms the cockles, doesn't it?
      a/b

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