After Sunday night, I have reconsidered my idea of a sure thing.
I have settled on seed catalogs. All those gorgeous shots of plenty. Close ups of melons larger than small children and pumpkins larger than small trucks. People so pumped up by heritage seeds they are singing old time music out in their fields. Cherubic children walking through gardens with every inch of space awash in perfect blossoms.
It’s very restful.
No hint of late frosts, early frosts, too much rain, too little rain, too much heat, too little heat, things that didn’t germinate, weeds that germinated too well or pesky insects of any sort.
That’s all saved for later. That’s saved for game time when I am actually out in the gardens with whatever did or did not grow.
And somehow, when I get to be up to my elbows in earth, I find myself able to be more philosophical about the ups and downs, the crop glories and the failures. I don’t really care that my Cosmos don’t look like the ones in the Park Seed catalog or that I get two small melons versus forty five hundred like the photo in the Bakers Heirloom Seeds catalog. If one crop is meager, something else is usually flourishing. We get to wallow in turnips instead of potatoes.
And if everything was to go wonky, I would still get to smell the earth.
There’s a lesson for me in all this. Let’s just hope I can remember it next time something goes south in some other part of my life. (What do you guess? With UPS as well as computers in my life a window longer than five or ten minutes between some sort of glitch is unlikely.)
Anyways, back to the point.
Gratitude. There is always so much to be grateful for.
Even when the Patriots were on their slow march to defeat, Megan’s fried macaroni and cheese was bringing pleasure. And that awful book about the knitting club? My gyrations to avoid an unhappy book have me laughing still.
Onwards! Adventures ahead! Bring it on! But don’t expect me to chose a mid life career change to Vegas odds maker. I think I will retire from predicting sports outcomes right now………