The Anti-Gardener

Last night I did a little gardening. The former occupants of my house were avid horticulturists. All I know is that "horticulture" does not refer to any culture I am familiar with. I have traveled far and wide and have yet to meet an actual "Horti."

Though I have harvested several small containers of gooseberries (since no geese have shown up yet to consume them) and shared many bulbs (?) of garlic with family, the leafy plants would only have benefited my former guinea pigs. Ah, the feast they would have had. One can only hope that heaven proves half as bountiful for my sweet cavies as my current backyard would have. So, leafy plants were "harvested" last night to make way for a grassy bed for the dogs while the green beans continue to ripen. They taste good right off the vine, unlike the green, green grapes, which are very sour indeed.

Mom found mint, and I have already found catnip, which I gave to the cat in a moment of sheer insanity. (He was up the entire night.) The asparagus and I parted ways, as it had grown shaggier than my dad's hair back on the farm in the 1970's.

The roofers were apparently not gardeners, either, as they left much botanical carnage in their wake. Now I am trimming trees and shrubs that are threatening to invade my neighbors' living rooms, and I managed to assemble my new electric mower just as the mosquitoes came out last night to try and carry me away (only the weight of the mower held me down).

The downside to all this is that today I am suffering from allergies I can only assume are a result of me sleepwalking into the garden last night and rolling around naked. My eyes are very likely going to come out of my head. The itching is tortuous. I am on so much antihistamine I could suck on cotton balls and feel less thirsty than I do now. So any proclivity I may have had for gardening before today is definitely gone now.

Sure enough, under synonyms for "horticulture" in my thesaurus is the word "misery."