Garden Plans

Martin was very busy over the weekend with a major project. He toiled over it until two in the morning on Saturday evening and spent at least five or six hours bent over it in deep concentration on Sunday.

The final project is now taking up half our dining room table, along with our computers, unfinished puzzles and hot cups of Sleepytime tea.

You'll never guess. It's a to-scale, detailed, topographic rendering of our garden plans, in. . ..LEGOS. Yes. You heard me correctly. The paths, the pots, even the compost bins and our white cat (we don't own it; it just likes our garden)--all carefully built out of legos. My favorite part is the woman sitting at a table under an arbor draped with grapevine. She did not try to design the garden, on paper or with legos. Her one attempt at building a pot was met with veiled derision. So she isn't patient enough to find just the right blocks--so she doesn't have an engineering bone in her body and her pots look like something from out of space--so what? She's happy in the shade.

The woman is me, of course, and she looks so content out there in lone splendor with her book, plastic ponytail, and pot of tri-colored flowers.

In contrast, there are three men, and I think they must all be Martin--one is watering the garden with a huge hose, one is raking over green matter in the compost bin, and one is jauntily starting up the main path with a broom in his hand (due to a cornocopia of legos from different sets, the broom used to be a spear. A barbarian gentleman with a shield and impressive facial hair used to lounge breezily on a garden bench as well until he was plucked and discarded).

There's even a little wheelbarrow and a woman in a zen position in front of a planter. That can't be me.

My little charge, Ethan, poured over the Lego garden today, and his little hands kept fluttering toward it. "No, we don't want to touch it," I'd say. "Uncle Martin made that."

Ethan couldn't wrap his mind around it. "You mean he made it when he was a little boy?"

"No, he made it this weekend." Of course, the impressive crop of legos are from Martin's childhood, and I am glad to report that he is just as delighted by them now as he was when he was ten.

We tromped outside in the garden in our snow boots and made comparisons between the lego garden and the actual garden. We agreed that though the height adjustments of our sloping garden had been tricky to achieve in the Lego replica, the actual toil output in our actual garden come spring thaw will be harder. . .a whole lot harder. But what's more fun than shoveling tons of clay?

I wish I had downloaded the photos, but they're still on the camera. . .maybe tomorrow. I know you'll wait with bated breath.