five scenes: springtime in the upper midwest
1.
Outside, the air is full of birdsong and the welcome susurration of snowmelt in the street drains.
2.
At the drugstore, Easter candy is half off, the bags of icemelt have been replaced by bags of potting soil, and cheap flip-flops decorated with plastic jewels express our faith that someday the temperature will stay above freezing for more than 24 hours at a stretch. "Snow on Tuesday!" says the teenager behind the counter, "Can you believe it?"
"Yes," says her coworker, with understandable grimness.
3.
At the hardware store, the snow shovels have disappeared from the side wall and been replaced by spades, garden forks, pitchforks, and pruners and loppers of various lengths and weights. The hose reels are out, and the seed-starting supplies and bags of grass seed are back on the shelves. When I come up to the register, Jim, one of the guys who gave me advice on potatoes a few years back, is arguing with the owner's son about the merits of Manitoba vs. Mortgage Lifter tomatoes. When they ask me what I've started I rattle off the list, which includes Manitoba, and report that my strongest seedlings so far are actually Jaune Flamme and Wapsipinicon. "You and your miniature tomatoes," Jim says, shaking his head. (Jim, like my grandfather, believes that it isn't really a tomato if it doesn't weigh at least a pound and require a steak knife to eat.) We all agree that tomatoes and beans are easy around here but melons are tricky and brassicas are just impossible -- and then sheepishly confess that we've started broccoli anyway, just in case this year is different.
"Well," says Jim, "it wouldn't be a garden if it wasn't thirty percent wishful thinking."
4.
The grocery store is pretty empty at this hour on a Sunday: everybody's either at church or at the diner. The registers are all staffed by boys this morning, and the baggers are all girls -- a recent development, origins unknown, though I suspect one of the local high school athletes, a tough little blonde with five older brothers, of prompting the reconfiguration. I picture her facing off with the manager: "I play hockey. I can bag and carry a sack of groceries."
Meanwhile, my purchases are confusing the kid at my register:
"Is this... spinach?"
"Upland cress."
"So... what would that be under?"
"Well, I'm going to guess either c for cress or u for upland."
"O...kay. And is this... parsley...?"
"That's kale. With a k."
"Huh." He regards the kale with skepticism. "What do you do with that stuff?"
"She cooks it and eats it, you idiot," says the hockey player, on her way out the door with the groceries from the next lane over.
5.
Back home, I walk around to the back yard, grocery bag still in hand, to check the state of the vegetable beds. One still has a crust of snow covering about a third of it, but the rest have thawed; the yard smells of -- well, of a garden in spring: wet dirt and rotting leaves and compost and just a little bit like chocolate from last year's cocoa hull mulch. I pull back the mulch around the leeks I left, as an experiment, to overwinter. The tops are wilted, of course, but I reach down to the pale base of the nearest one and it pulls up easily, smooth and white, black dirt clinging to the roots.
Snow expected for Tuesday, but that's April for you. I'll be back out this afternoon to plant spinach and peas.
Originally posted at Dreamwidth || Read
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Outside, the air is full of birdsong and the welcome susurration of snowmelt in the street drains.
2.
At the drugstore, Easter candy is half off, the bags of icemelt have been replaced by bags of potting soil, and cheap flip-flops decorated with plastic jewels express our faith that someday the temperature will stay above freezing for more than 24 hours at a stretch. "Snow on Tuesday!" says the teenager behind the counter, "Can you believe it?"
"Yes," says her coworker, with understandable grimness.
3.
At the hardware store, the snow shovels have disappeared from the side wall and been replaced by spades, garden forks, pitchforks, and pruners and loppers of various lengths and weights. The hose reels are out, and the seed-starting supplies and bags of grass seed are back on the shelves. When I come up to the register, Jim, one of the guys who gave me advice on potatoes a few years back, is arguing with the owner's son about the merits of Manitoba vs. Mortgage Lifter tomatoes. When they ask me what I've started I rattle off the list, which includes Manitoba, and report that my strongest seedlings so far are actually Jaune Flamme and Wapsipinicon. "You and your miniature tomatoes," Jim says, shaking his head. (Jim, like my grandfather, believes that it isn't really a tomato if it doesn't weigh at least a pound and require a steak knife to eat.) We all agree that tomatoes and beans are easy around here but melons are tricky and brassicas are just impossible -- and then sheepishly confess that we've started broccoli anyway, just in case this year is different.
"Well," says Jim, "it wouldn't be a garden if it wasn't thirty percent wishful thinking."
4.
The grocery store is pretty empty at this hour on a Sunday: everybody's either at church or at the diner. The registers are all staffed by boys this morning, and the baggers are all girls -- a recent development, origins unknown, though I suspect one of the local high school athletes, a tough little blonde with five older brothers, of prompting the reconfiguration. I picture her facing off with the manager: "I play hockey. I can bag and carry a sack of groceries."
Meanwhile, my purchases are confusing the kid at my register:
"Is this... spinach?"
"Upland cress."
"So... what would that be under?"
"Well, I'm going to guess either c for cress or u for upland."
"O...kay. And is this... parsley...?"
"That's kale. With a k."
"Huh." He regards the kale with skepticism. "What do you do with that stuff?"
"She cooks it and eats it, you idiot," says the hockey player, on her way out the door with the groceries from the next lane over.
5.
Back home, I walk around to the back yard, grocery bag still in hand, to check the state of the vegetable beds. One still has a crust of snow covering about a third of it, but the rest have thawed; the yard smells of -- well, of a garden in spring: wet dirt and rotting leaves and compost and just a little bit like chocolate from last year's cocoa hull mulch. I pull back the mulch around the leeks I left, as an experiment, to overwinter. The tops are wilted, of course, but I reach down to the pale base of the nearest one and it pulls up easily, smooth and white, black dirt clinging to the roots.
Snow expected for Tuesday, but that's April for you. I'll be back out this afternoon to plant spinach and peas.
Originally posted at Dreamwidth || Read
comments on Dreamwidth