I dug my fingers into my garden this morning. It was wet, cold, sloppy. Like a drenched dog that just swam a river. Not quite ready yet for much of anything.
The above analogy was partially stolen from the Toronto Star gardening columnist Sonia Day. But I liked it so much I decided to embellish upon it and use it for my own devices.
Ms. Day advised against taking a rake anywhere near the garden yet. The roots of perennials and tender shrubs are too near the surface, and the soil too wet -- they're liable to brake and get torn up by the rake. But she said I could use my hands, so that's what I did, raking with my fingers to move the soggy old leaves, twigs and bits of detritus from around the base of my bedraggled perennials and naked shrubs, picking out stones and odd bits of garbage as I went.
To my utter delight I discovered the translucent heads of daffodil shoots nosing up through the surface of the soil. They're that newborn lime-green colour. The colour of vulnerability. I'm terrified for them and praying they'll make it. If a soft little stem of cells and water can crack a roof of heavy soil and withstand the wind, sun and rain, then maybe there's hope for me too.
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