wendy witch world

These dahlias are free, at this point.  Dahlias are not supposed to overwinter here, the conventional wisdom is that you are supposed to dig them up and ... fuck if I know how that instruction ends, because that is when I cast aside the instructions.  I cannot be bothered with a plant that needs special treatment, and obviously, these do not, since they have come back every single year.  I do not like Garden-y or Kitchen-y Makework, who the fuck needs to make work in the kitchen or the garden?  There is not enough to do already? I would rather save all that fussy, frilly, artisan's can-do, perfectionist's slavering for the fucking bedroom. Ok, I am just saying.

What the hell were you doing in the garden with your decimated ankle joint and your overused shoulders? is what a reasonable person would ask.  Digging up comfrey root, I would answer.  I wanted to make a comfrey root poultice and since I have the plant & a sassy cred in gonzo herbalism, I went out there and hacked away in the dirt looking for it. 

Why the fuck did you not ask yr able-bodied husband to do that?  ARP would ask.  Mind your own goddamn business, I would respond. 

Sometimes, it is more work to talk about something than it is to just crawl around on the ground and do it.  After I dug it up and threw the root chunks behind me, over & over, Mari picked it all up & took it in the house & washed it for me & cleaned the food processor (rr-rrr-rrrr-rr) when I was finished.  I put the poultice all over my foot & ankle, wrapped it back up in its fracture strap-on guy, hobbled around for a little bit, took my crutches out for a spin to go talk to a neighbor.  When I came home & washed if all off before bed, it was like someone had erased the bruising.  All that was left was a just a very faint rose-colored outline of a stain. Obviously, I was taking photos of the wrong thing on Sunday.

I had the camera with me in the yard because we had just come home from a Fathers' Day outing to a minor-league baseball game & I did not waste any steps going to the house from the car first.  Navigating a sporting stadium was pretty much the definition of Doing Too Much.  I fell to the ground and trying to make my way back to the comfrey -- which is one plant in from the margin of the garden -- I was literally swatting dahlias out of the way crossly -- God, if these weedy, what are these, red, oh, so thickety, hey! -- before I realized it was my bonus bloom.  Awesome.

I ventured out to the backyard to check on the vegetables today; nothing back there -- beans, a couple of squashes, cucumbers, 2 tomatoes, kale, nasturtiums -- is really growing very seriously.  Also, the god damned squirrels keep eating the sunflower seedlings. But I cannot be worried about it anyhow this summer.  Bloom, don't bloom; fruit, don't fruit.  It is as much trouble for me to get around the backyard as send my family to the farmers' market, so whatever.

Good things are happening, as I predicted.  Well, maybe. I tell the children to do things. I do not actually know if they ever do the things I ask because I mostly take naps and have dreams about eating candy bars.  Never since I was pregnant have I been so ravenous as since this accident!  (God, syntax, why do you never help me!!)