First Taste of Gardening

With exception to the crazy afternoon winds, we have had a rather pleasant late winter. With the sun shining this morning, and knowing Bug needed a bath, we headed out to play in the dirt. With hopes of expanding our garden this year, from seeds no less, I started prepping the soil. I am already craving the sweet tomatoes and peppers and their beautiful colors. We hope to add green beans and some summer squash this year.

I tried to teach Lily how to pull weeds, but she wasn't very good at it. Don't worry, we'll keep working at it. She was, however, really good at picking up rocks and throwing them in the bag. When we added the block wall, the workers asked us what to do with all the dirt. Gleefully, I asked them to throw it against the back fence, excited we wouldn't need to buy dirt to fill the retaining wall that would be added a few weeks later. What I didn't anticipate was everything that went with the dirt; nails and screws, cement clumps, rocks, PVC pipe, broken fence pieces, and shoelaces. Thus, we may be cleaning out the dirt for quite some time.

Toward the end of our time, it looked as if Lily had rolled in the dirt. She was covered in it but was having a blast. I moved along the wall pulling weeds when I heard her start repeating, "A bite. A bite. A bite." As my typical response to her non-stop chatter, I simply said, "Mmm-hmm." I then realized what she was saying to turn around and see her use the shovel as a spoon to taste the dirt she had just dug up.

Believe it or not, the photo above is not her first bite but probably the fifth time I had wiped the dirt from her face and tongue. She repeatedly took bites of the gritty stuff and then tried to chew the sand.