Work is just nuts these days; it’s more competitive and we are all on the edges of our seats wondering if our jobs are secure, with trepidation, we take it day by day. The national/local news and government are scaring the pants off of us with threats of “pandemic” proportions. And who really knows what the heck is going on over there in Pakistan…what are those people thinking anyway? Even if we don’t want to know, the 24-hour news shows will forcie it down our throats while we attempt to enjoy an evening meal.

My suggestion: start a garden. I promise not only will it remove you from in front of the television but also away from all of this world-craziness for a while every day. I begged my father for a patch of land and bribed him with dreams and guarantees of several varieteis of fresh tomatoes, gargantuan pumpkins, and sweet, juicy, black diamond watermelon. Eventually he took the bait, we shook hands and he informed me that he would supply the wanter and the dirt and that’s all….the rest was up to me. Victory was mine!

I have a vision, well several, but one is of a good-sized garden that can provide produce for the families of my brothers and sisters. Most of us live around here and with the price of one tomato being what now $5? You’d think it contained tobacco or gold or something! It’s becoming ridiculous. My thought is to be able to let the relatives shop in their very own, personal, open-air produce isles. Part of the vision is that our pack of ankle-biters (my nieces and nephews) can get out there in the rows and pick the tomatoes and peas and pumpkins themselves, like we did when we were kids. I understand there are children out there that believe their lettuce comes cut up in a plastic bag from the refrigerated section in the grocery store! Everyone needs to experience a fresh, leaf-lettuce salad where occasionally, a grain of soil curnches between one’s teeth; a little dirt never hurt anyone. With that dream in mind, I pressed on.

This vision of mine began to fully materialize when the massively intimidating roto-tiller of my youth, magically appeared next to the patch of ground this past weekend. I remember this beast the minute it came into view. It had to be the same one with it’s large, slightly rusted motor and huge red fender covering the deadly looking blades lurking under the flaps on the back. I was informed that I would be honored with performing the ground-breaking ceremony, otherwise known as the tilling. The skepticism had to be undeniably obvious by my raised eyebrow because I got a: “You can do it, you’re gonna do it, I’ll get you started, let’s go”, and off we went.

After his little pep talk of sorts, he reaches over and pull-starts this 35-year-old contraption…one pull mind you…farmer/small engine genius that he is. Just like that, my father is walking breezily, next to this ear-splitting monster for a few feet, barely holding the one handle with the tips of the fingers on his right hand, making it look effortless. The man missed his car salesman calling. I jump in with renewed confidence, how hard could it be…right?…it looks so much easier than I remembered.

Holy mackerel!!! First of all, the handlebars are at the height of my armpits so my elbows are up by my ears, the ground I’m attempting to work was part of a corn field last year so there’s huge tractor tire tracks in it and every time we (me and my new mechanical friend) go over a rut of any size; I practicially get thrown from my precarious saddle. My generous instructor informs me that “it might buck a little, just hang on and don’t let it get away from you” then he drives off. Farmers…like he’s got better things to do on this sunny day in early May. I guess I was okay with his leaving because I like to figure most things out for myself without anyone watching me make mistakes, this is definitely one of those things. I’m a nurse who pays special attention to the ergonomic workings of people’s manual labor jobs and this one would have taken the cake, had I been observing myself at this particular task. There was a point at which I was just hoping I would be able to walk away without having to wear a cervical collar for a couple of weeks, a sling to support a possibly shredded roatator cuff, not to mention hoping that my face remained intact should I “let it get away from me” and fall prey to those potentially carnivorous blades.

It took me a while but I stuck with it and then I repeated the fun because the farmer told me that is what he would do if he were planting a garden and I tend to follow instructions from those that should know. When it coems to gardening anyway. The second pas was nowhere near as exciting and the soil finally became soft, workable and suddenly, full of promise and possibility. I stood back after I was done, smelled the turned earth, cracked my neck a few times to get my head back on straight and finally started to feel like the sheer terror of the last few hours of my life, was completely worth it. Well, once the rining in my ears subsided…mental note to self: ear plugs would be of benefit for the next round with the roto-tiller.

Now for the fun part: the planning and the planting. I should clarify my idea of “fun”: the weeds are non-existent for this short period of time and the possibilities are endless because I have packets of seeds that would make anyone jealous. More seeds than I will ever use but I couldn’t resist when leafing through the catalog in Januay. I am a novice so I spent that time it takes to loosely measure and I even drew a colored map of what I envision the garden to look like complete with colored-pencil drawings of the vegetables in their beds. I could picture it in my mind, I measured meticulously with a marked broomstick before I pounded in the stakes and ran the string between them to mark my straight rows. I carefully placed some of the seeds in somewhat perfectly linear fashion down each row bed. I’ve started some seedlings in my house for transplanting and I even tacked the packets at the end of each furrow as part of the therapy I mentioned earlier. Everything is in it’s place and as it should be, all is right with the world.

To me, gardening just makes sense when most things around us don’t. I have the luxury of enjoying it, I won’t depend on it to feed my family so it won’t turn into work….well at least not until the weeds take back over and the temperatures start to climb. Still, I’ve managed to create an outsource for my anxiety and work-related stress and to me, that alone makes it worth the while. With every weed yanked free and vigorously shaken loose until it’s lifeless and then thrown out of the garden with a vengeance; so too will go the pressures of the world and the stress of my day….it’s the perfect therapy.