Romancing the Garbage Dump

This morning I'm at My Ranchburger, preparing for a weekend at The Bunny Bungalow; however, I took some time out to plant some yellow Lantana and Sweet Basil in a large pot which already contains Rosemary, mint and apple scented Geranium. So, I have to confess, I forgot to water this large pot and some of the more fragile plants withered away (a euphemism for died.) Hopefully, Tall Husband won't yell too loudly about this transgression, if he sees I've replaced plants. He is a tender, attentive gardener and laments the passing of each plant, and my forgetfulness, along with a brown thumb, gives him occasion to lament..loudly.

I think my forgetfulness is the reason I love trees so much. If you forget to water them, they just put down deeper roots and grow strong enough to withstand our hurricane seasons. Remembering this, I looked up at a Crape Myrtle tree that Tall Husband and I had planted some years ago. What do you think I saw? Its first bloom of the season! You know how exciting that is.

When we planted this tree, it was about ten feet tall with a large root ball. We've all seen bad guys in movies digging graves. They make it look so easy. Well, let me tell you...digging even a small hole in the earth is difficult work. When it was my turn at the shovel, I couldn't believe the energy it took. After about ten minutes into my digging career, my shovel hit something hard...clunk. I screamed, "Buried treasure!" I had always said there was something special about this piece of land.

Tall Husband quickly came to the edge of the hole to take over. Refusing to give up the shovel, I dug faster, with new-found vigor. Finally our treasure was partially visible: "Old bed springs," Tall Husband said in disgust.

Before we got that tree planted, in addition to wrestling bed springs out of the ground, we had dug up a rusty old ax head, an old railroad spike, bucket-loads of rusty metal and pieces of dirty, disintegrating rags.

We had to admit it. The evidence was in: we lived on an old garbage dump. All our romantic notions about American Indians having hunted Buffalo here; about pioneers passing through...all gone. We are garbage people!

"Well, it doesn't look bad for a garbage dump," Tall Husband tried to reassure me.