a gardener, i am not

Inspired by the sunny weather Friday afternoon, I decided get out the trowel, hoe, rake and loppers and take to our overgrown jungle of a yard -- this on the heels of a recent conversation with my neighbor about the abundance of wild onions in and around our yards.

Anyway, after mowing the yard and trimming the walkway while down on my hands and knees (these are the perfectionist distractions that often keep me from making art), I found my way into the onion/daffodil patches. Weeding, while obnoxious, is also rather satisfying and borderline addictive. So, I got onto a weeding spree, yanking and pulling and digging up clump upon clump of the pesky things.

Somewhere in the middle of this process I moved away from the deeply rooted purplish weeds and started with the onions. Compared to the purple things, the onions came up like a breeze. I could grab a whole handful of them and pull gently and they slid out like butter. It was so much more pleasing than whacking and digging at the other weeds to get the f@*kers out.

After pulling out four giant piles of onions it occurred to me that I wasn't smelling the typical onion scent. Upon further examination, I noticed that the tops of the plants weren't rounded like onions usually are. Then i starting thinking about the fact that I was weeding in the part of the yard that was flowery last year. Next, I started to get worried because flower bulbs do look quite a bit like onions. Finally, I started to get that horrible sinking feeling that I had made a big mistake.

Now, I ask you...how do you tell the difference between clumps of onions and clumps of soon to be flowers?











The onions are on the right and, dammit, I learned the hard way.