Gardening Glitches

Many years ago- in fact, 20-22 years ago, I had a wee vegetable garden. It was my first. My husband was helping me weed it one day and we were chatting together as we companionably worked side by side. I had just commented on how beautiful all my little baby carrots looked- like little miniature ferns, so cute, so pretty- and he had just responded to that comment when the phone rang. I went inside to answer it, which was the work of about two whole minutes.
I walked outside and all my carrots were gone. Every one of those adorable, sweet, tiny little ferny babies had been ruthlessly ripped out of the ground and laid to one side. Every man who hears this story wonders why I still remember it. Every woman who hears the story understands that the point was not my darling little baby carrots, it was that my husband was not listing to me as we chatted together while working companionably side by side. I was, apparently, talking to myself.

I didn't know it then, but this plant killing was merely the beginning. Four years ago we dug up some peonies from my great-grandmother's/uncle's house in town (The Rattery). We planted them just outside the sunroom window. My husband mowed them down. The next year I marked them with a flag. He mowed them down again. The next year they actually survived the mowings long enough to be knee high and laden with lovely, large, round, brightly colored ball-shaped buds (I think they were maroon), and he mowed them down again. Then he was afraid to mow, and Pip did it for him. She also mowed them down and was so traumatized by the experience she won't mow the backyard again.

They'd already been mowed down once this season, and I'm not going to see any blooms this year, either, but they were at least growing again. Yesterday our new son-in-law to be mowed the back yard for us. Before he mowed, Jenny-Any-Dots went outside to show Shasta what portions of the yard should not be mowed. He actually knew what a peony was, recognized the plant, and claimed to like them very much, so we were reassured that he was not as likely to mow them down as my husband, who can't tell a dandelion from a violet, has been.

He was doing an excellent job on the lawn when Jenny looked out the kitchen window and saw him suddenly slump over in the seat of the riding mower. She asked the HG to come look, saying, "Something's really wrong with Shasta. He looks sick." He had his head down on the steering wheel, all his posture denoting gloom and despair. Mine. Because yes, he'd just mowed over my peonies. Equuschick heard me yell and came out to see if he'd survived.

To make the irony complete, I had just that very second published this post, where I foolishly waxed rhapsodic over the fact that he was mowing our lawn. I told them the wedding was off, but nobody believed me.


You know how I've mentioned Shasta is a nearly seamless graft into our family? Mowing down my peonies is apparently a family tradition that isn't going away.