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David Spates I play the role of a beast of burden It's spring - a time when a young man's fancy
turns to, well, nevermind. My wife's fancy, however, is another story.
Hers turns to gardening. If I were living a bachelor's life, I'd own
a condo or lease an apartment with which there is absolutely
no outdoor botanical duties associated. No lawn to mow, no bushes
to prune, no leaves to rake, no flowers to fertilize and no wrought-iron
hummingbird stakes placed strategically in the middle of your
hostas. If it were solely left to my discretion, I'd load a Super
Soaker with sulfuric acid and let the whole yard sizzle under
the noon sun. Then I'd install curb-to-door Astroturf. That stuff
lasts forever, and there's absolutely nowhere to put a wrought-iron
hummingbird stake. But, as I said, it's springtime, and my wife's
fancy has locked in on gardening. So by the power vested in a
preacher in the Commonwealth of Virginia, through sickness and
in health, 'til death do us part (or until I sell her on the
Astroturf idea), alas my fancy too must face the yearly ritual
that is suburban gardening. My role in the Spates suburban garden is little
more than that of a beast of burden. I'm a fairly large, slow-witted
mammal, and the yoke of subserviency fits well across my shoulders.
It's a duty I don't particularly enjoy, but marriage is about
give and take, and I know she puts up with just as many or more
of my misguided passions as I do hers. Many's the time she has
rolled her eyes at a suggestion of mine, but gone along with
it anyway because it was something I wanted to do. So with that,
certainly I can tolerate a few hours' garden drudgery during
the spring weekends. Last weekend was a big weekend for mulching.
I'm not sure what mulch does, but apparently it's very, very
important to the overall well-being of our yard. I guess I could
ask her what mulch's special purpose is, but I cannot imagine
an answer that would satisfy me on any level. Truth is that I'm
just not interested in what mulch does, and there's no point
in pursuing the question if I'm not the least bit interested
in the answer. So I leave it alone. Well, actually, I shovel it. By the shovelful.
And by the wheelbarrowful. And by the truckful. Mulch goes in the flowerbeds and around the
trees. Again, I'm not sure why it goes there, but it does. What
I do know is that it stinks. For years I had assumed I was shoveling
you-know-what. (Some people no doubt would argue that I've been
shoveling for much longer than that.) I was relieved, however,
to find out that the mulch we buy doesn't contain animal poop.
I had assumed that something that smelled that awful certainly
must include fertilizer au naturel. So I guess I WAS interested
enough to ask that question. My opinion of mulch changed significantly
after that. In all seriousness, I must admit that the
yard and the flowerbeds do look better after spending a few hours
working on them. Plus it makes the forewoman happy, and that
makes me happy. It doesn't look as nice as a yard of Astroturf with football yard markers painted on it would, but I'll continue to argue my case. Meanwhile, there's another truckful of mulch outside with my name on it. |