Wrens, Etc.

From the frantic "zicking" I hear all over the yard, the house wren babies must have left home this morning. The parents are going nuts under the tall mint, under the rosebush, then near the lilac where the snake resides: "Over here! I'm over here I said! No, no, don't go that way! O.k., I'll bring you some food. Be right back. Don't move!" I remember that feeling.

The little wrens picked a fine day for fledging, sunny and crisp. Fresh from my husband's hands, one of the raised garden beds now stands where the spinach used to be. Today I added a load of compost to the topsoil, and planted beans. It felt strange, this gardening without stooping.

When the peas are ready to come out, I'll install the second bed in their space, and plant beans there as well. The remaining seven beds will have to wait until the end of gardening season sometime in October, since all the other spaces are taken up with tomatoes, broccoli, kale, chard, eggplants, peppers and zucchini. Then I'll have to race to fill them before the mountain of topsoil that the patio builders left for me freezes solid.

It's been raining a lot lately, and the earth is pushing up veggies faster than I've ever known it to. I froze ten quarts of chard the other day and didn't even make a dent in the stuff. On the other hand, the (ostensibly) edible-podded peas are a disappointment. For the second year in a row, no matter how early I pick them, they are as fibrous as S.O.S pads. I guess the thing to do is to let the pods mature and then shell them like regular peas. But that's a lot of work.

We have our own mini version of the Gulf oil spill in our yard. The patio builders' truck leaked transmission fluid all over the grass, leaving big wet-looking dead spots. Hoping to avoid having to dig it all up, I covered the spots with topsoil and will throw some grass seed on them and keep my fingers crossed. Don't I sound just like BP?

I dragged some big flower pots to the edge of the pond under the watchful eye of the resident frog, who was sunning herself on a lilypad. Wolfie has been peering at her with that sharp look of his, but I have looked him in the eye and told him that she belongs to me.