Identity Crisis

In my lifetime there are many things I thought I knew about myself, or the way my life was going to go. Like how I never wanted children, would graduate in four years from UK, would never enjoy frugal living, wouldn't dream of having savings accounts and investments and by now I'd have gone to Europe at least once and met some beautiful Greek man of my dreams. I would also never do things like garden or work my hands through a container of cow shit.

Oh how life makes liars of us all.

It goes without saying that I am most definitely not the person the 16 year old version of myself thought I would be. And I would say I've embraced these changes in myself and my attitude towards life. My biological clock is ticking, I'm perfectly fine with being a 5th year Senior, I love saving money, can't wait to have investments, and Greek men are no longer my idea of perfection.

However, I can't say I've embraced the goings on of the past two weekends. And today as I was elbow deep in compost and topsoil I whispered to myself, "I don't even know you anymore."

I can tell you this little "hobby" of mine is time consuming, body ache consuming, and pocketbook consuming. But I am loving it. Every single, dirty-icky-disgusting cow manure filled minute of it.


Last weekend I finished the bird retreat. This weekend I put the final touches in by planting various little plants, not visible to the naked eye yet, and finally putting the container together for the dogwood.






I then proceeded to "what the hell, let's go for it" and put together a small garden. Without a tiller, might I add. Saturday I drug my mother to Cheeks Produce in Elk Creek and bought 16 beautiful tomato plants. I picked up three squash plants today and a cucumber bush to complete the ensemble. I worked the ground the old fashioned way, added soil and compost, planted and added the weed-ex lining. I ran out of mulch to finish the top, but pretend it's all covered.






And when I was done with all of that I decided I wasn't done yet, so I dug a hole for my Redbud tree (yes, the one I dug up myself), staked it into the ground, mulched it and stood back to enjoy the view.





And while I'm tired, overworked and underpaid and no longer know myself I have decided in the end it is all worth it. Especially when I can sit back and watch these little critters: