Grow Hope

Unemployment is capitalism's way of getting you to plant a garden. - Orson Scott Card

It's spring here, finally. The kids and I spend our afternoons outside. Moving rocks mostly. That's Sawyer's favorite pastime. He's very strong. He lifts them into his wagon, dumps them in with a loud crash and pulls them up the hill to a different garden bed where he helps me make a border. He's amazingly useful in that way. I weed and think of new things to plant. Tomatillos here. Peppers there. Cilantro over in that bed. Definitely potatoes. Broccoli or brocollini. I'm jumping on the wheelbarrow and becoming part of the Vegetable Gardening Phenomenon 2009. I think there needs to be a poster of the "I want you" ilk only with Obama's face and a giant green thumb."Plant a Seed. Grow Hope." or something like that. Even the kids are planting gardens at their little preschools this year. I told Sawyer tonight that if he took a bite of broccoli I'd buy him a kids sized trowel and rake. Now that I've discovered the benefits of bribery, I use it whenever possible. As tempting as that was - his fear of green food prevailed. I also like the deceiving choices route: Do you want to taste the broccoli with butter or without butter? That didn't work either. So I'm hoping this whole garden thing is going to perhaps tempt him into the world of vegetables - a place he has yet to explore except to build gardens in his mashed potatoes or drop peas into the engine compartment of his toy car. Scott by the way took a bunch of photos of me planting strawberries today wearing my pink Smith and Hawkins gardening apron and an orange bandanna in my hair. Sadly, there was not card in the camera. (My fault.)So this is all I've got:

I want YOU to plant a garden!