Bulbs

It was very much a school-dominated week and, after teaching all day, I've had to bring home lots of work that needed doing every night. As usual, I was determined to get caught up with everything before I left for home on Friday, but (also as usual) this didn't happen. So it all came home with me in my rolling crate and here it sits beside the dining room table, patiently waiting. I woke up at five this morning, trundled out and got both classes' spelling tests graded and recorded. With that done, I'm putting all school aside until tomorrow. Don't get me wrong; teaching for me is both a passion and an honor...but sometimes I wish I had the kind of job I could leave behind when I left work. I have so many other things around here that need doing...

Which brings me to what's on my jobs-to-do ticket for tomorrow: In a fit of the gardening madness that strikes me every autumn, I ordered bulbs. I waited until the end-of-the-season clearance sale came up with my wholesale company of choice, Van Engelen. And then, with the prices so low, I went just a teeny-tiny bit nuts and ordered -- here it comes -- 251 bulbs. I'm hoping that it's only me who thinks that this might be just a little excessive. Sigh... OK, so every year I fall in love with all the pretty pictures in the bulb catalogues. I read the swoony, over-the-top descriptions and I must have all these lovelies for my own. Forgetting that I live in the midst of a landscape where you need a pick and dynamite to blast through the earth to plant a single seed. None of that matters -- at least not until, one day, many weeks later, the UPS truck pulls up to the house and tosses out a hefty box of bulbs. And I'm all happy for about 20 seconds. Until I realize that someone is going to have to plant all of these fat, cosseted bulbs. And that person is me.

So tomorrow the person that is me has cajoled the long-suffering person that is Bruce to help me get all of these guys into the ground. Peonies, lilies, green tulips, brodeaea, calochortus and something called eremurus (I couldn't even remember what this was and had to look it up. I fell in love all over again when I saw their picture).

It is very late to plant bulbs. But this is a very atypical year -- we had a few good rains very early in the autumn and then a high pressure system moved in and we've had nothing since. Two months of no moisture and the ground is dry and when the wind kicks up, dust swirls in the air. Amazingly for January, the fire danger is once again high and no outdoor burning is permitted. Last weekend we began watering our young trees again because we don't want to lose them and the pond continues to shrink. We are hoping like crazy that this weather pattern will change and good soaking rains will come our way. I think that the bulbs will all think that they were planted in the autumn, with this wonky weather. If they're watered, they should do fine.

My greatest wish is that the heavens dump down on us soon, soon, soon!