Planting the garden

The chiming clock wakes me at 9. I had set my alarm for 7:45 (but didn't hear it) to get to the school by 8:40 and help set up for the community garden plant trade and sale. I have the key to the school. I dress in two minutes, look in on the girls, but see their fair heads still fast upon their pillows, and race out the door without them. By the time I arrive, everyone has set up on the ground. I unlock the door and help bring out tables.

Later I take the girls back and we buy a few plants. Word of Marian and Brenna's coolness seems to travel before them, so other gardeners make a point of introducing themselves.

After lunch at Angel's Diner, we plant our garden plot. Marian and Brenna quickly grasp the importance of the bindweed problem, and with dedicated determination begin excavating bits I have so far missed. This process seems to please them.

Starting from seed: peas, beans, lettuce, carrots, spinach, dill, sweet marjoram, summer savory, and Blue Mist fragrant woodruff. I forget to plant the basil seed; will have to go back and do that tomorrow.

Plants: four varieties of heirloom tomato, sweet red and purple peppers, watermelon, borage and calendula from bitterlawngnome's garden, Penstemon digitalis, Asclepias tuberosa and anise-hyssop.

At the after hours clinic, I settle down to knit for the usual 90-minute wait, but the nurse calls my name after five minutes. I thank her for hurrying me through this time. She is surprised to learn that I usually have to wait my turn. Dressing and packing a wound only requires a nurse's attention. They're not supposed to make me wait, she says. But what else can one do? At least I've done a lot of knitting this week.

The wound is progressing slowly. It has reduced from the size of a kidney bean to the head of a Q-tips. Since Thursday it has gone from red to pink. This time I get to skip two days and go back on Tuesday.