Well, it finally feels like spring.  Juncos are gone and the turkeys are trotting all around the house.  We started work on the gardens, Timmy in the vegetable, me in the St. Francis' flower garden.  I can't garden like I used to.  I hoe a little then sit down on the ground and break up the clods of clay that have formed over the winter with my bare hands.   They don't call it Clay Hill Road for nothing.

Sitting on the warm ground, breaking up the clay with my fingers, I remember when as a kid I would help Poppy in the garden.  We lived on Falconer Street, a hill, so the garden was on a tier higher than the house, but not as high as 17 Falconer, next door where I lived.  Poppy had made a dirt strainer, an old screen mounted on a frame and I would help him sift the garden dirt until it was as fine as sand.  "Ready for planting now, " he would determine and put in a row of green beans.  Some different from this soil.  My kids used to make clay balls, form the balls with wet clay and let them dry in the sun.  A weapon of mass destruction when flung at someone.  Anyway, gardening is a meditation that takes you many place, from grandfathers to school kids.

Red Hook Elementary has a garden and Sabra and Tony volunteer there on Friday afternoons.  Sabra says the kids love, love the garden and get a lot out of seeing the flowers and vegetables grow.  Funny when you think about it, when I grew up everybody had a garden.  Probably a throw over from the war and the Victory Gardens.  No matter the size of the yard, there was always a part set aside for tomatoes. When we lived on Beacon Street where many Italian families were, they would bring out a fig tree that they had kept in the house all winter.  Hot peppers were in their gardens, with hundreds of tomato plants, growing to be canned for a winter meal. My sister Barbara told me about her neighbor who would hang geraniums upside down in the cellar, not even in dirt, and in the spring plant them and they would come to life.  Talk about reincarnation!  I never had much luck keeping plants over the winter, except for my Passion Flower that Mickey and Sue gave me years ago.  About two weeks ago, it started growing like crazy, sending out tendrils that reached for the window and light.  Yesterday, I told Timmy to put it on the deck, hopefully it can stand the cool nights.  I had too.  It was like watching a caged animal trying to escape. Hopefully, the Juncos were right and spring is here.