Nature Girl Returns!

Longtime readers may remember last summer's adventures of Nature Girl as I discovered my love of playing in the dirt (aka gardening). I had intended to get out into the yard earlier this spring, but with icky weather and my mom's death, things just didn't get going sooner. Today, though, Nature Girl was back and happily digging away.

The funny thing is that I hadn't intended for NG to come out to play today. I'd woken up relatively late, ate a quick yogurt, and then headed downtown to see what the Farmer's Market had to offer. I bought some lovely tomatoes and green peppers as well as some fresh cilantro and then headed to Wal-Mart to grab a couple groceries after deciding that my Farmer's Market finds would make for some lovely homemade salsa with a couple extra ingredients that were not to be found downtown. (Yes, I KNOW Wal-Mart is evil. I've been making a concerted effort lately to shop there less, but there are just a few things there that are so significantly cheaper that my checkbook practically forces me to go there. For example, the exact same bottle of bleu cheese dressing is $3 at the other grocery store in town. It's $1.58 at Wal-Mart.) As I was pulling into the parking lot, I casually glanced at the outdoors gardening center and gasped aloud when I saw pots of geraniums on sale for 25cents a piece. For less than $5, I was able to buy 18 geranium plants that I promptly brought home and planted along my front sidewalk. They aren't the healthiest plants right now (thus the price), but all they really need is to get in the ground and get some TLC, all of which has now happened for them. After planting them, I watered them (including in the water a scoop of Miracle Gro) and then around back to wonder at what's going on in the crop circle. Last year's seed blanket that flourished late summer with great beauty has returned with another stunning display. And I didn't have to lift a finger!

So now I'm going to go tear into that homemade salsa that's been sitting in the fridge for the past hour or so and think to myself, "Damn, I love summer."