The Puttering Begins

I am a gardener, or so I like to think. A few years back, I began a journal on my experiences in the garden, keeping track of the first freeze, the hard freeze, the arrival of the first green shoots of my hostas and the ants showing up on my peony. From time to time, it would come up in conversation and when I'd casually inform my dinner guests that last year's hard freeze was on November 18 or that the day lily Lady Rebecca Staunton was in bloom on July 2, they'd marvel at my memory. (Yet I can't remember some parts of a conversation that took place only moments ago.) It was because I'd kept a careful record of what I had done, planted, planned, even screwed up. And sometimes some none garden stuff got in there. Like the year, I had breast cancer and chemotherapy. And I always kept track of my daughters' sports teams and their wins and losses. My children are a kind of garden metaphor. I put a lot of care and energy into helping them grow, too. So this year, I'm digitizing my garden journal. I doubt I'll give up entirely my pen and pad. I sometimes carry it with me to the garden stores, or bring it out back and write in it after I'm so exhausted from gardening that my last gasp of energy is reserved for only the movement of my pen. So welcome any stumblers to this blog. But largely, it's just for me. The Putterer