Old Stumpy Bites the Sawdust

No matter how fed up I get from time to time with gardening, it always comes back to remind me of it's therapeutic value just as I'm about to throw in the trowel. The long May weekend, traditionally a big gardening weekend here in Ontario did not bestow the warmest of temperatures for such pursuits. Saturday was rainy, Sunday was windy and cold and just as we thought the whole weekend was going to be a bust, along came the perfect conditions for shovel and hoe on Monday. Of course, before I could even begin, I had to collect all the twigs and debris that had blown about the day before. I'm not sure why, but my lawn mower doesn't appreciate these obstacles in it's path. Once the lawn had a fresh hair cut, it was time to survey the land. There was a stump that needed to be removed, requiring the breaking out of the big guns - the chainsaw. These are tasks I draw the line at and pass the buck to hubby. Manly chores I call them. So "Tim the Toolman Taylor", aka - my husband, reluctantly got the power tool ready, after I threatened to do it myself with a hand saw that would have taken me forever to make even a small dent, so it was a good thing he didn't call my bluff. Once that tool makes it's debut each spring, I always manage to find umpteen other trees and shrubs that could use some pruning, so before you know it, my "one stump request" has turned into an afternoon of hard labour for "Larry the Lumberjack". Fortunately, he didn't seem to mind. Once all the branches were down, that's when I had to take over and start bagging them for the yard waste collectors. As I was doing that in peaceful solitude, birds chirping, sun shining, power saw silent, I was suddenly aware of a loud screeching hysterical female voice about two houses down. I would rather listen to the chainsaw than the sound of human distress any day, and I was immediately concerned. I stopped clipping for a moment to listen and determined it was coming from across the street and a bit east of my house. Being the nosey Gladys Kravitz that I am, I headed over to the edge of the yard and leaned over the fence to see what was going on. A small black car was parked and a young woman was literally screaming (almost hyperventilating) her head off at someone in the car - her husband or boyfriend, I'll never know. He then got out of the car and came around to approach her, when she jumped in the car and peeled away. He then ran down the road after her and now he was shouting hysterically for her to come back. Once the scene moved around the corner, although I could still hear shouting, I lost interest in their domestic drama and carried on with my clipping and took a deep breath, trying to restore my own chi in the garden. It got me to thinking about the plight of this couple and how whatever it was they were arguing about would seem meaningless in a day, or a week or a month and what a waste of negative energy it was. What both of them needed as far as I could tell, was to spend some time in a garden and look beyond their petty problems and differences and do something soul-soothing. At the end of the day, the garden looked content and happy like it had just spent the day at an expensive spa, and I felt as good as it looked. Like I said - who needs therapy? Just give me a day with Mother Nature and all is right with the world.