Robin in the Rain

"Robin in the rain; what a saucy fellow!" This is one of Raffi's lovelier songs for children; you can't help singing along when he pipes up with the Robin On a Rainy Day--even when you have heard that same song a gazillion times over. Such repetition marks the passage of daily life with children, and indeed it is one of the joys of having children.

Today found me out in the rain (not as lovely as a robin with soft slick feathers) driven by some force (guilt? procrastinating planting 48 strawberries?) to continue my gardening efforts. This time I was after a tree.

Between our house and the neighbor's runs a skinny sort of alley, filled with miscellaneous trash, overgrown vines, gorgeous fern fronds, and three renegade maples that do not belong and will probably choke all our pipes and lines and end by unearthing our entire foundation. Needless to say these maples must go.

But after paying numerous sums for shipments of puny, stick-like trees, I am loathe to just cut down three healthy trees with robust buds. As today was wet and soggy, I thought I might just have success in digging up a maple.

If you had looked down the shady alleyway from under the dry canopy of your umbrella this morning, you would have found a woman, hair unruly, pants mud-spattered, huge pink sweater wet, wrestling with an impossibly big maple. This woman would have been grunting, bloody-knuckled from a bit of a fall, leaning and rocking on the handle of her shovel, verbally abusing the maple, then hugging it around its trunk and tugging in a clearly futile attempt to take it with her to a new home. Then you would have seen this same woman whacking wildly at the roots with her shovel and finally slipping down the alleyway empty-handed.

Or not entirely empty-handed. I did steal five ferns, fuzzy fiddleheads curled; some small indeterminate trees or bushes; and a few pounds of mud on my shoes.

I am determined to unearth that maple. Tomorrow, gloved this time since I cannot afford more skinned knuckles, I will return for another brawl. Coming? There's strength in numbers.

PS. I want to take more pictures of Wazoo Farm but our battery has run out and I can't be bothered at the moment to buy a new one. But as soon as I locate a store somewhere, I'll begin posting pictures of maples, compost, straw--oh, my--I'll bet you can hardly wait!