The Resurrection and Death of my Prize

If you have been reading my blog for a while, you may remember my excitement to have finally gotten an avocado seed to sprout after roughly 20 years of trying. Here is the link in case you don't remember: http://awritersblot.blogspot.com/2013/09/a-different-angle-to-method.html  Since then, my avocado plant has grown quite well and I have transplanted it to a couple of different pots.

I like to use self-watering pots so I don't have to worry that my prize plant will die of thirst. But knowing that I would be gone for almost a full month, I knew I needed to make arrangements for

Growing Marijuana?

I got a really strange reaction to my request for hydroponics supplies when I was in Leander during my trip.

I was within about an hour's drive of "home" and I remembered the name of a "water gardens" nursery from when I lived there, +Hill Country Water Gardens. (In fact, I used to be rather perturbed that there was a water garden nursery in Central Texas, where water is very expensive during summer months.) Because I had been thinking that it would be nice to garden indoors during the long northern winters and I remembered the "water gardens" nursery near my old home, I made a point to stop in.

Perhaps it is because I do not care much about my wardrobe. I like to feel comfortable when I write, think about story lines, play with my dog or whatever I happen to be doing by myself in my empty house. So I wear comfortable old jeans, a t-shirt and sneakers most days. I rarely wear any make up and my hair is usually pulled back into a low pony-tail which may or may not be partially braided to keep the tie from slipping out of it

Though I was traveling rather than sitting around in my house, my wardrobe remained the same. I really saw no need to invest in new clothing and makeup for a 3000 mile drive to mostly just visit friends and family. I decided to charge my credit card for dining out, instead. So, yeah, I looked like a writer for the whole trip. Okay. But that is what I am.

I just walked into the garden shop and started looking around at all the stuff they had lining the walls. I knew one thing I was looking for but I had forgotten its name. (They are called "net pots.") I would have asked right away, but the girl at the counter was busy with a customer. So I just looked around while I waited for her to be done. I figured the little pots were probably around somewhere because they are an integral part of hydroponics gardening.

I was wrong. (It happens every now and again, though not often.) It took a few minutes for the counter person to be free. But when she was, I approached with my question. All I needed was the net pots, but apparently, the water gardens store does not do hydroponics. I explained that I was visiting from Wisconsin and asked if she knew of any place that would carry what I needed.

The girl said she knew of three places in Austin, but then she tried to talk me out of going to them. She was adamant that I should by my supplies closer to home. Every reason I gave for wanting to go to a local hydroponics store was met with an objection. There must be a store closer to where I live, she insisted. Her behavior really confused me. It did not make sense. All I wanted to do was buy some little pots for growing plants inside in water during winter.

I did not let the girl get out of answering my question. I had her look up the addresses of the three Austin stores she said she knew worked with hydroponics, then I drove down to the nearest one, +Texas Hydroponics & Organics. It was along my route back to my son's house, anyway. I waited to talk to the counter person there, too. Trent was the man "in the know" and very busy with customer questions -- so busy, in fact, that at 4:00 pm he had still to take his lunch break.

Trent answered my questions about the differences between hydroponics and aquaponics, then got me all set up with net pots, growing medium, fertilizer and seeds. He was very nice and did not try to talk me out of buying my supplies at his store. (He said that people from all over the country shop there.)

Pleased with my success in finding and buying my supplies, I took my goodies back to my son's house. There, I told both of my kids about my odd experience with the clerk at the Leander water gardens shop. Anne had no reaction. (She was busy playing an online RPG.) But I waited through guffaws of laughter for my son to give me his observation.

"Mom," he laughed. "She thought you were trying to grow marijuana."

I'm sure I gave him a funny look because I did not understand, so he clarified for me, "People use hydroponics to grow marijuana in their homes."

Suddenly, the girl's reaction made sense to me. But now I was slightly irritated that she thought I look like I use marijuana.

About two weeks later, I was sitting with my parents at the counter in my favorite local pizza parlor. (They wanted to watch the football game.) I knew several of the servers that night so, thinking he would find it funny, I told my marijuana story to one of them. His response was along the lines of, "Uh huh." (He was preoccupied.)

A little flustered by the response I had received, I turned to another server and announced, "X thinks I look like I grow pot in my back yard." Almost instantly, X began to defend his reaction. But then the other server asked as if it was no big deal, "So?"

Alrighty. I guess I look like I grow my own marijuana. Perhaps I do need to invest a little in my public image... But I think it can wait until I actually have a public image to invest in. My dog and my computer seem to love me just fine in my comfortable clothes and wearing no make up.

Garden of Paradise

One thing I really love is to enjoy a beautiful garden. When I owned my own home in Texas, I would start my seeds indoors in early Spring, watch them grow, then plant them outside at the appropriate time. Because he loved me, my husband would always graciously help me by churning up the earth so I could pull out Spring weeds before I planted, but he would also always complain that it was silly for me to plant a bunch of plants that I was not going to weed and water. Still, I planted my carefully grown seedlings. Then I would promise myself that "this year" would be different because I would take care of them. It was the same every year.

Each morning during Spring, I would rise and send our children out the door to school. Then I would walk into our back yard and sit on the porch to watch the hummingbirds visit my feeder. It was glorious and peaceful, the time of day I enjoyed the most. I loved my wild hummingbirds and they seemed to have no fear of me. I had names for the two parent hummers, Jack and Trixie. (The hummers were so unafraid of my consistent presence that one time, when my husband and I were on the porch and he was up on a ladder near their food, one of my little friends came over to take a whif of his red hair!)

After enjoying my view from the porch for a little while, I would rise to walk down the few steps into our yard, then check on my gardens. I would water, pull new weeds, gaze at the results of my work, pick some herbs or flowers if I needed them, then go back inside to start my day. But when school recessed for the summer, my routine was upset. Texas summers are very hot. No matter what time of day I went outside, it was either too hot or too dark to sit and pull weeds. All I managed to do was water my gardens and, despite the good intentions I had at their planting, they became overgrown with weeds again. Year after year after year, eight years in a row, it was always a variation of the same story.

Now I live in Wisconsin. The house I bought and am fixing is more than 1000 miles North of the Texas summer heat and this is the first year I will be able to plant anything in my yard. Oh, how excited I am! For the last three (or so) weeks, I have been looking at seed catalogs and I think I finally am decided on a color scheme for my back yard. It will be ever so pretty!

This morning, I have off from work. I am done for the season and it is my first day off. After getting my daughter out to school, I headed upstairs to crack open my Bible. It is something I have been meaning to do and the first day off work after the season is a good excuse to begin a good habit. Therefore, I began at the beginning: Genesis. Well, where does Genesis begin? The creation of man. And where does that take place? The Garden of Eden, which (if you read the footnotes as I was doing this morning you will learn) means the Garden of Paradise. . . and that got me thinking about my fixer-upper's back yard and how I would like it's back yard to resemble a paradise garden.

It was not long before I had to put down my Bible to go look for my plants at the local nursery. I could not pay attention to the text while it was talking about gardens! The ground cover I want is not yet in stock, but guess what I found? The exact bushes I have been eyeing online and in magazines are in stock and were On Sale for 60% Off!! They even have the right color flowers. I bought four for half the price I anticipated paying for just one (based on internet pricing).

God Is Good to Those Who Follow Him. The only thing is. . . I now have four bushes that I am unable to plant for two more weeks (the next time I make the drive up North). Well, maybe by the end of that two weeks, I will have also purchased a shovel to dig the hole to plant them in.