Dear MaryBeth,

I've been on my hands and knees grubbing around in my flower beds, pulling weeds and trying to talk the roses into blooming because I'm weary of all the little blue spring flowers, lovely as they are.  (Flax, salvia and iris all bloom at the end of May.  I look out my window and there are only purple and blue flowers, very calming and elegant, of course, but my heart is just crying out for something yellow! Then, in July, the only things that bloom are yellow and I have to apologize to the blue flowers for taking them for granted...)

When I weed, I think.
And I remember.
And I worry and pray and solve world problems, although by the time I come in to have a drink and write down all my brilliant thoughts, they're gone...pppffft!...like balloons that got away from a birthday party.

Today, though, I was thinking about my friend Karen Yost who made the mistake one time of asking me to weed her daisy bed by the back door.  She really should have gotten my gardening history (none) before she set me to the task.

First, let me say that Karen is like a mom to me; she and her family opened the door and let me live with them for several summers when it became apparent that I, like a stray cat, was not going to leave so they may as well put me to some good use.  I was in my 20's, very lost in a way, and trying to grow up backwardly...life happens like that, sometimes.

Anyway, she showed me the flower bed, asked me to weed it and then went to innocently off to work in town.  I had absolutely no idea what was a weed and what was a flower, but I wanted to do a really good job because I cared so much for her, you know?  I worked on that bed all morning, in the hot sun, weeding my heart out!
And everything else.
When she got home, that was the CLEANEST flower bed you've ever seen.
There wasn't a speck of a green thing in it!
No weeds!
No daisies!
Nothing but dirt.

Now that I garden, I can only imagine how her heart must have just fallen in a big, sad puddle inside at the devastation of her flower bed.
In fact, I call her every year, now, and apologize for it.
EVERY YEAR!

Bless her heart, she told me that she'd been getting tired of the daisies and had wanted to put in something different there, anyway.  Like in Emma..."Daisies are such drab little flowers..."

I don't know if she replanted them or somehow I didn't pull everything out by the roots because the next year, the daisies were back with their happy little faces.  It wasn't until I started trying to grow them here at my own home that I knew how much she must have missed them!

Karen also introduced me to raspberries, but that's another story for another day...

I hope your little garden is doing well.  I love reading about it in your dad's blog!  Your mom says that you weed every day, so I know that we're probably weeding at the same time some days. (If you ever have someone help you, make SURE you interview them a little to find out if they can tell a bean plant from a weed...)

Love from Montana!
The Farmer's Wife