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April 2010

Easter Sunday

Too many things happen on holidays to be simply coincidence. But then, what is coincidence?

Today, on a morning walk with Lance, I saw a small patch of the deepest blue scilla growing at the very edge of the road in dried up gravely soil. Later, in an online search, we found that Scilla is a town in Calabria, Italy, on the strait of Messina, the traditional site of the sea monster, Scylla, of Greek mythology. Calabria is where Lance’s deceased mother was from.

This afternoon, on my way down the hill to the enclosed dog pen-turned-potager, a big rabbit ran out from under the mountainous forsythia. It ran all the way beyond the grass and garden to the brush near the cornfield. Such is life on Easter at this residence.

On the last two Easter Sundays, Tanky, the “baby” of my 14-year-old dog litter, enjoyed baby bunny snacks – one nest a year before I could tear him away. He’d snatch up a bunny, chomp a few times, gulp and look at me with pleasure and gratitude. Among his blood pack of four, he was the most subordinate and sweet, a 115-pound lap dog, yet also the least civilized – closest to his wild brethren.

While the scilla was a remembrance of Lance’s mother, surely, like Nature’s clock, Easter Sunday was a remembrance of Tanky to the rabbit that ran for his life.

Down in the garden, beyond the old forsythia and philadelphus, the land wants to revert to its former self of two years ago: a grassy, weedy dog pen. Last year, the dog pen was rototilled but, this year it will be a “no till” garden. All it takes is a jab with a shovel tip and a shake of the weeds to shed the soil around their roots, thanks to not walking on the beds last year.

The war of the weeds begins. They are showing their forces. I must jump on them fast.

I plant Super Sugar snap peas; sweet peas; Sweet Greens & Reds Lettuce (mix of Little Gem, Tango, Outredgous, and Cimarron); Catalina Baby Leaf F1 spinach; Southern Curled mustard and Summer Perfection spinach. I start seeds in flats: heliotrope and last year’s Pompeii plum tomato seed, an F1 – all from Renee’s Garden.

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