Expressions and Gardening

          As a child, I can remember my dad planting a garden each year - not that any of us were avid gardeners mind you.  I don't even know where his interest had come from as it didn't seem as if his family had gardened.  Perhaps it came from his grandparents or church.  I'd never even thought about it until now.

          Dad was not one to express emotion. 

          I honestly don't know if he felt joy with planting a garden, apprehension, pained, or what.  I never questioned it.  Perhaps my mom did, but I hadn't connected the dots and perhaps was not aware of expression.  I think Kayla and I perhaps express more emotion than our brothers, but not much.

          Take Saturday, for instance.  Roland has wanted to plant a garden every year.  I think we had attempted two different years of gardening in Kearns, two or three in West Valley, and now our first one in TriCity - which I think may account for the biggest challenge of them all because there are so few spots of level or flat land.

          Not only does he wish to grow our own food, but spruce our yard's appearance by adding flowers.  I'm not against flowers or gardening - but I'm certainly not excited about it.  Hey, if you want to replace every single juniper with a flower, be my guest.  But don't ask me what I want or to show excitement over something I very well could be allergic to.  I don't know about plant life nor have the interest to explore my options.  I know for a fact that I'm allergic to chrysanthemums and poinsettia - not that either one was an option.  But still.  I AM ALLERGIC TO PLANTS.  MY ALLERGIES REACT TO DIRT AND DUST THE SAME.  I'm NOT excited.

          So we ended up at two different nurseries in Winston, and I sensed that Roland was annoyed with me because of my lack of interest.  Well, I'm sorry.  It's a hereditary thing, I would guess.  I can't visualize Patrick getting excited over the flowers that Sunny tremendously loves.  I can't visualize Corey "ooing" and "awing" over anything that Joh has planted - even though Corey helps, even though Patrick assists . . . we just aren't expressive people I guess.  Kayla lucked out as I'm guessing Bill has even less gardening ambition than I do.

          We ended up with Marigolds, geums, amaryllis, and irises.  for the vegetable garden we planted two blueberry bushes and seeds for beets and spinach. 

On the side of the house we have three tomato plants and some peppers. 

Looks like the rain has stopped and so we will have to water the plants.  We should get more rain when Roland puts up the air conditioner.  It always rains right after we put it up.  I really don't want to feel scorched this summer.