GRANDILOQUENCE

Do you like that word? Just wanted to see if you were paying attention.

Actually, I just had to look it up to prove to myself that it was a real word. I'd never heard it before. The Wheel of Fortune came on TV. (I say it "came on" because it isn't a program that I normally watch.) The puzzle was "Bombastic". Then they asked the player to use it in a sentence, and she made up a sentence that really didn't use it properly. They accepted it anyway, and I, being rather compulsive about such things, had to go look it up to see if there was some kind of definition that would excuse it. The definition for "bombastic" was "grandiloquent". OK.

Enough of this.


I am happy to say that I just ate a sandwich made with lots of lettuce from my own garden. I wish I could say that the V-8 I had with it was squeezed from veggies from my own garden, but that is not to be. But it makes me very happy when I can eat something that I have grown myself. I wish I could grow everything. Remember the Victory Gardens we had during World War II? No, most of you aren't old enough to remember that. We had a big plot, and we ate very well from it.

The first of my wild flowers have put in an appearance too. Forget-me-nots. The rest of them, plus the sunflowers I planted in back of them, are showing great promise. And the tiger lilies are already blooming. I love tigers. They were volunteers - a few tiny plants that sprang up in the grass. I moved them into the garden a few years ago, and they thrived and spread. I now have them in two gardens. I love volunteers. You always know they will do well, because they aren't moved far from where they originated. And they always just seem to fit in.

And now, having ended the whole thing with a preposition, I will end the post. Nothing more to say. Just wanted to keep in touch.

Horticulture

The gardening catalogs keep coming in the mail. I still look through them and plan my imaginary garden even though I know it will never come to be.


I was fortunate enough to grow up in a part of Pennsylvania where you could just sort of look at a spot on the ground and think about what you'd like to have there, and it would start to grow spontaneously. My mother always had flowers. And when I was a child, each summer I had a little vegetable plot with a row of carrots, a row of beets, and one of parsley.


In my twenties, I moved to New York's Long Island. Again - no problem with gardening. I never read a book on the subject. Just went by instinct. Our garden was always full of whatever flowers took my fancy each year. Everything thrived.


Then I moved to New Jersey. The "Garden State". For several years I filled the yard with flowers and sometimes tried new things, out of curiosity. One year I grew peanuts and cotton successfully. One summer was filled with Jerusalem artichokes.


But now I am an old lady and unable to stay out in the sun very long and cannot do much digging or weeding. I miss having my gardens. But I do have my bulbs to present me with spring gifts, and a few perennials to bring the butterflies. And there are lots of pots here and there. I still like to try new and different things now and then. A dwarf orange tree might be fun.


It never ceases to amaze - a simple little seed, eventually turning itself into something so very beautiful. I cannot imagine a life without the opportunity to watch things grow - plants - or children. They are both exciting to observe and bring so much pleasure to our lives. And, of course, sometimes frustration and/or disappointment. But there's always hope for the next season. Something to look forward to - to plan for. Anticipation is what keeps us keeping on.



To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow. - Anonymous