It's been dry and sunny here for over a week so I had the bright idea of tidying up the garden, you know the sort of thing, mow the lawn, pull a few weeds, gently dig over the flower beds without spearing the spring bulbs (this happens a lot later in the year).

You probably know my drill by now, go to the shed rummage through all the 'stuff' till I find the lawnmower etc. PB turns up right on time just as I'm changing the fuse (electric lawnmower) and gives instructions via headbutts to my elbow on how to do it properly.

He retires to the veggie plot once he's satisfied that the mower is in working order and watches me with half closed eyes till I put the mower back in the shed. Then he comes and inspects my hard work making a few comments about how chasing his toy ball on the new flat lawn isn't as much fun and couldn't I have left the grass to grow long so had somewhere to hide while chasing birds and butterflies.

Next on the agenda is pulling weeds and some light digging. I start on the central flower bed which is mostly bare at this time of year. My digging disturbs a few worms and PB thinks they may escape and cause untold damage else where in the garden so he gently taps them with a paw till they disappear back into the soil, this is repeated with any worm that dares to stay above ground for more than a few seconds.

At this point I feel I must point out that PB is paying 'very close' attention to what I'm doing and every time I crouch down to pull a weed I end up sitting on him and I get the 'look'. If he's not satisfied with my digging he moves about 10 feet from the offending bit of garden and runs full speed at it and skids across the bed spraying soil in all directions, so now there's almost as much soil on the grass as in the flower beds.

While doing the last flower bed I disturbed a rather large orange and black bumble-bee who buzzed angrily at me for intruding upon his feeding, PB thought I was being attacked and came to the rescue and chased the intruder away.

After all our hard work PB and I sat on the garden bench in the sunshine and shared a corned beef sandwich... a perfect end to a perfect day.

Copyright © Shirley Holland
April 11, 2002