The Knitting Writer

Ugh. Double ugh. Triple ugh!

I may not be killing this garden but it is killing me. You’d think there would be no drama involved, what with the yard being nothing more than a few plants and rabbits. Think again!

A flower that wasn’t there before

Drama #1: The Dead Bunny Fiasco

We have two rabbits. The Big Bun and Nike. We let them out to run on a rotating schedule as they fight when they are out together. It was Nike’s turn to be put back in his cage. Only I couldn’t find him. I hadn’t seen him for two days. It had been in the high 90’s and his water had not been drunk.

I knew he was dead.

The problem with this is that they are my brother Spencer’s rabbits and he is coming home from his mission in two weeks. TWO WEEKS! And the rabbit died on my watch. I was completely distraught.

Per the advice of my parents, I let the Big Bun out to see if he could find the body for me. Low and behold! Nike was out on the lawn, happy as can be. I still have no idea where he was hiding. And they weren’t fighting at all so I decided to let them have a day out together. After all, we haven’t let them out together in years. Maybe they’re too old to fight.

I was right. They are too old to fight. When I got home that night, they were having boy bunny sex. Which is super awkward to watch. And I kept trying to pick up whichever one was on top and they would hop a few feet away and keep going! I was so embarrassed. Finally, I had to poke Big Bun with a stick so he hopped away. Nike was too exhausted from the day’s activities to fight and let me put him back in his cage.

Also, the Big Bun isn’t drinking from the water dish either now that he’s outside. Where are they getting water?? I doubt I’ll ever know.

Drama #2: The Carrot Conundrum

Carrots BEFORE murder

The carrots were growing and it was time to thin them out. I called my sister to ask for advice as I had no idea what to do. Basically, you want to cut off the stems rather than pull out the roots as this distrubs the few carrots you leave in the ground. You want to have one carrot every three inches.

So I murdered about two hundred carrot babies.

It was so sad! I pulled a few of the

stragglers out by the roots, just to look at them. They have a long white root that looks more like a bean sprout than a carrot. They weren’t even orange yet. And then I had to face that fact that this baby carrot will never reach it’s

potential. Who am I to decide which carrots live or die? How do you know which white carrot root has the most potential to be the best carrot? You can’t! That’s how!

Carrots AFTER Murder

Note: I’ve been told I’m being too dramatic about this but I can’t help likening it to judging a book by it’s cover or possibly how my tiny brain thinks the slush pile at a publishing house works. The horror! I don’t want to be judged the way I judged these carrots! How do you know a lovely, lush green top will yield a delicious carrot? Ugh!

So I just have to blindly pick and choose one carrot for every three inches of space and pray for forgiveness from the carrot guardians. The rabbits loved the murder though. They ate all the carrot tops in two minutes flat. Greedy buggers.

Drama #3: The Problem with Heat

So far out of the twenty-two days I’ve been watering said yard it has been in the mid 90’s. This meant that I had to reset the sprinkler system. Should be easy enough. My mom even left me a sheet of her water schedule for reference. So I go outside to the panel and read the handy and helpful instruction sheet next to the box.

I can’t find the very first button it references.

I begin to panic. Why doesn’t the START TIME button exist? It can’t have changed. This thing is ancient. Then I realize I don’t even need that button so I thankfully skip to the next step. Push the SET switch down to PROG. Turn on the days that were turned off (TUE, THUR, SAT). Woo hoo! I did it! I’m fairly sure I walked away with a confident swagger in my step.

And then the lawn starts to die. What did I do? It finally hit 100 degrees for the first time this summer so maybe I need to increase how long the sprinklers water every night? What? WHAT?

And then I remembered. I forgot to put the PROG switch back to SET. So the sprinklers weren’t ever set to go again. This is where I hit my forehead repeatedly.

Drama #4: The Flighty Bird Ejection

Home of the evil Bird

There is a bird. It lives in this bird house. Isn’t it cute?

This bird is evil.

When I’m watering the yard, I can’t heard much since water droplets hitting leaves makes a lot of noise. Inevitably, this bird will decide to “get spooked” by me watering and fly out of the birdhouse when I am least expecting it, thereby giving me a heart attack. He also shrieks very loudly when he does this.

Every time I come out in the yard now, I make sure to walk past the birdhouse a couple of times, very loudly, before I start watering. Does the bird get spooked and leave then? NO. He waits until I have decided that he must not be home before giving a cry of attack and shooting out of his home into the sky.

I’m about ready to buy a bebe gun and shoot the thing.

If there’s anything I learned from this experience, it is that a few silent plants can be more drama than high school girls* ever were.

*Your experience of high school girls may differ
from this blogger, making this statement either
ludicrous or naive. The writer of this blog is not
responsible for your experiences with high school
girls and states for the record that she hated high
school just as much as you did. Probably more.
Don't argue. She really won't listen.

So a few things have started to die. You will notice a lack of pictures.

There are two spots of daisies in the backyard. I’ve watered them the same amount yet one patch has beautiful daisies that taunt you to make daisy chains while the others are scraggly and without petals. What gives? I’m not convinced a certain purple flower in it’s own pot was ever alive. It is perpetually shriveled.

Half the roses seem to be dead or dying. All the blooms are yellow and brown around the edges and a lot have no petals left at all. I accidentally sprayed one of the more dead-looking blooms with the blast of water and all the petals fell off. I hope I didn’t break the circle of life. They’re supposed to fall off anyway. Maybe it’s just time for the roses to say goodbye to summer (que The Last Rose of Summer as sung by Celtic Women). And I forgot to water the indoor plants on day 7 and instead watered them on day 9 so they are rather yellow. :S

There are a few pots which are full of dirt that my mom told me had seeds in them. I’m beginning to wonder. Do seeds need time to incubate, like a caterpillar in a cocoon? How long does it take for a few sprouts to show? I don’t even know what’s in them. Maybe I washed away the seeds. I’m not very good at watering gently. I seem to move a good amount of top soil (vocab word from middle school finally came in handy) when I water.

And another thing. I feel so wasteful every time I water. I live in a desert. While I am grateful we have water, this seems like such a waste. Can’t we just fill the yard with tough, indigenous plants that don’t need so much water and attention? Or am I being selfish rather than green? The hobbit gene must have been given to my sister and passed me by entirely.

Day 4: Mowing Day. Picked up sticks from the windstorm in the back and mowed the front. Not as hard as I thought but why didn’t anyone warn me to wear gloves? I could hardly knit because my hands were so sore! I was so tired after mowing the front lawn that I decided to do the back later. Which I forgot to do.

Days 5-8: I think I only watered the yard twice. It’s really hard to motivate myself to do it when I get home late. I mean, isn’t a goodbye party with your writing group more important than some green stuff? And the yard isn’t crispy. Oh and on day 8 I mowed the back lawn for the first time. Much trickier since I have to mow around the trampoline and the tree house/swing set/slide thing. When I moved the trampoline I realized the grass underneath must not have been mowed in a long time as it was so, well, long.

Day 9: Watered the indoor plants. Somehow the shamrocks are doing marvelously well. Maybe they don’t like to be overwatered? And the slug bait has finally disappeared so I let out Nike (the little rabbit). He did the happy hoppy dance as soon as he touched the ground then promptly hopped into the myrtle and out of site.

I’ve picked strawberries twice. The beans are shooting up by inches. I’m beginning to get nervous about thinning the carrots. I just don’t know when to do it. How do I know without pulling them up? What if I’m too early? This is why I support professional farmers by buying my fruits and veggies at the farmer’s market. They know the secrets and I don’t. And I’m fine keeping it that way.

As the British and pop-culture savvy would say, keep calm and carry on.