MAR’ 19

10

Sometimes, I can’t quite believe that March is still technically winter. Today, for instance, the sun was out and it was possible to garden without your fingers going numb from the cold. Davis and I are in the midst of the great spring cleanup in our yard. I cannot remember being so happy to squat among my strawberry plants, cutting away at the dead bits to make room for the green new growth underneath. Willa mostly pottered about, occasionally interesting herself in what we were doing, oscillating between Davis and I according to some inner rhythm of her own.

After being scolded for walking on my strawberry plants and pulling off perfectly green leaves, Willa had taken off her boots (against my advice) and gone over to a small patch of snow to scoop up wet clumps of it and flinging it out away from her. I had lost myself again in the task hand when I saw some energetic movement out of the corner of my eye. Suddenly, I felt her presence behind me and, when I looked up and back from my work, she was sprawled out on the grass just behind me, eyes squinting against the light of the sun. She rolled from side to side on her back, her legs up in the air. Like a dog rolling in the grass. I was so happy in that moment. To see her relaxed and basking in being outdoors. We were together but separately. Me, working silently, alone with my thoughts, with the sun at my back. Willa beside me with her own work, her own thoughts.

My eyes roamed the yard, hungry for and noticing all of the little changes taking place in the garden.

The garlic that we planted last October (or was it September?) have sent up sturdy, green shoots of leaves. But, the raspberry and blackberry canes were still dormant. We cut the canes to the ground. I fretted a bit about doing it because it seems rather harsh and drastic but I trusted my research and carried on. By contrast, the row of yarrow that I planted in front of the raspberry canes look like little, green fountains of delicate, velvety fronds. I also noticed that our sour cherry tree was due for a prune. Moving on from the strawberries, I grabbed my pruner and set about cutting branches that are obviously growing across the tree. Once that was done, it was a little harder to know whether a branch needed to be removed or shortened. Pruning is a bit of an imprecise science and art. The goal is to encourage healthy growth that will result in the production of many but large fruits. There is also a question of aesthetics but in service of function and health. I think of it as bringing light to the center of the tree.