And so it begins....

The new year has started and the parish is alive with religious education classes, pot luck dinners, tourists and out-of-towners squeezing in that last wee bit of holiday before returning home. The stores are packed with students loading notebook paper, crayons, pens and pencils into their trollies.
"Puhleeeeeeease Mom, I just gotta have that poster for my locker!"
"Stop hitting your brother!"
"Let's go check out the video games!"
"Mine, mine, mine!"
The stores have become a chaotic cacophony of sensory overload. Time to check out and go home to the quiet. On the way out to the car, one of the young boys of the parish comes running up to me and gives me a bear hug; just as quickly he shoots off before his mother pulls away and leaves him behind. Hugs, I can take plenty; noise not at all.

Tis a different beginning for me: the advantage of being a senior, an elder stateswoman if you will, is that my time is less harried. This beginning is about the pulling and plowing. Pulling up the old veg and plowing in more manure, more leaves, more lime. Then covering it all with hay to let it "work" until the February planting.

Tis also the time to expand the garden area. My special grub hoe has sharp pointed blades to easily break the clay soil and amend it. Clay is the gardener's antagonist in our part of the world. In the summer heat it bakes into hardpan; I've often said that instead of planting a garden I should open a brick factory. It takes about 3 or 4 years of amendment and tilling before the clay soil becomes good soil. Just as it takes time for anything to grow and mature.

Today I came in soaked; not from rain but from perspiration in the heat and humidity. I might as well have just hosed myself down after watering the animal pens. We had a wee rain yesterday, just enough to make us want more. The thunder threatens but only a few drops fall today. 'Lord, pour down the sweet rain of relief we need so badly.'

That's me away to the kitchen to make the supper.