The Joys of Gardening

Dale

May 25

So. Last weekend was the traditional "plant-your-garden" weekend up here in Canada. Or is it mostly in Quebec? Whatever. It was our May long weekend, third Monday of May, which is always the Monday before May 24. What is May 24th? That was Queen Victoria's birthday so, as the "Mother of Confederation", she gets honoured.

As for here in Quebec? Oh no, we are distinct. We don't wanna honour no stinking Anglo queen! Much better to honour those who fought in the rebellion against the British in 1837. It falls on the Monday before May 25, coinciding with Victoria Day, and is called Patriots Day (since 2002). (However, in the 1920's, the Quebeckers unofficially started calling this day Fête de Dollard, for the "hero" of the 1660 Battle of Long Sault. However, in recent years it became embarrassing to keep the name because it could not longer be swept under the rug that he was more of a schmuck than a hero as he not so much faught against the Iroquois as he ambushed them. A name chnge was in order!

Let's be honest here. No one cares about what this particular holiday is. It is a paid day off (or a day paid at double pay). It was garden time, baby!

Back to the purpose of this post.

I ordered this connecting raised bed thingy last February. I did NOT receive it. I have been back and forth with the company and that's neither here nor there now, is it? No, coz planting season is here, now. So, I used last year's pots and there ya go.

Went and got my plants and herbs and flowers (stinky marigolds to keep the beasties away) and whatever other stuff that would help my garden grow. Sprinkled cayenne pepper, strategically plced said stinky flowers and basil and voilà.

In between planting and stuff, I was getting the pool ready, too.

Even went wild and planted some flowers in the front and filled in with cedar mulch.

And so ended my long weekend. Tuesday night we had torrential rains and I thought the garden was done for. But no! It survived. Woo hoo!

Went out last night with the girls, had a delicious Cajun dinner and lovely evening. Totally enjoying my drive home until I came to a complete stop, then crawled at a snail's pace. Da hell? It's 9:30 at night! Why am I in traffic worse than at 4:30 in the afternoon? Merge from three lanes, to two; then from two to one and forced out at the exit before mine. Just bloody great. As I approach my exit from the service road, I see a truck and I think... they're painting the highway? Really?

A thirty-minute drive home turned into an hour and I was just wishing for my bed at this point. But. Whoa. The moon was HUGE! And right there! But I couldn't stop anywhere and I knew that once I reached my house, it would disappear because it was too low, so I drove a little ways to a parking lot and boom!

Julie, Gisella and me

How to go from pissed and fed up to happy... just like that!

And here we are today. Friday. Another weekend ahead. As soon as I got home, I went to check my garden.

MUTHAF****!

Lettuce. GONE.

Cucumbers. GONE (note the marigold is still standing)

Other batch of lettuce. GONE. Lovely marigold holding court, watched the whole thing go down and did NOTHING.

Parsley from large herb garden. GONE

Apparently, my efforts were all in vain.

I'm ready to order a hit on the effing groundhog who lives under my deck. I shoulda known when I saw the little fucker peak out this morning, one paw on the step. You hear me groundhog? YOU'RE A DEAD RODENT!