I hate dandelions. That is all.
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Just kidding, that’s not all! But I DO hate dandelions with the fiery passion of a thousand suns.
Today’s post was supposed to be about my planters, but a series of unfortunate events forced me to write about dandelions instead. (Mainly due to my $%#@ camera battery needing to charge for FOREVER just to afford me the privilege of retrieving pictures.) Stay tuned for a planterrific post on Saturday. (I hate myself a little for that last.)
So on my way home from school today, I had the brilliant idea to try weeding my garden for the first time. (As you read this, bear in mind that I had spent the entire day coaching beginner violinists, as the spring concert date loomed ever closer.) Let me just say that having a big garden seemed like a good idea at the time.
Since our lawn and garden are the shame of our street right now, I felt it would be wise to tackle at least the front and cull the herd, so to speak. I was feeling pretty chipper as I donned my new gardening gloves and got out my trowel. “This won’t be too bad” I thought brightly as I surveyed my territory.
Thus began the seven trials of Sarah Burnell my inauspicious first gardening experience. I started out with this forky thing that I thought was for pulling weeds, but only succeeded in desiccating the leaves (yet, maddeningly, left the roots firmly in the ground so that they might continue to entertain me for weeks to come). After two or three completely unsuccessful tries, I switched to my trowel, which was a lot more useful. I really got on a roll at that point, almost as though I had some kind of dandelion-homing device installed. Whoosh! went the dandelions as they flew over my shoulders and onto the lawn! Plop! went the little clumps of earth as I shook them from the roots.
After more time than I care to mention quite some time, I stood up in victory to admire my handiwork… only to realize that there were still some dandelions sitting there, mocking me.
I prevailed, but let me tell you, it was not without some fairly un-ladylike language. At this point, the garden wasn’t looking too bad. No more ugly yellow blotches and I was feeling pretty pleased with myself.
So then I needed to collect the debris into one of our large garden refuse bags. Except it started to rain. Hard. I threw down the bag and, reaching my arms up to the heavens, cried out (actually out loud) “WHY, GOD, WHY?!?!”
And that’s when the neighbour’s kids rounded the corner. Fixing them with my best “who you looking at” face, I picked up my bag and pronounced the whole thing an unfortunate contretemps which only a glass of wine would fix.
No, it is most definitely NOT dandelion wine.
Cheers.
