The Garden Project: I’ll do that tomorrow
I wish I was good at telling stories. Does anyone have any tips for me? How can I get better?
Steven and I took a long bike ride yesterday in the beautiful sunny weather, then made our way over to the garden in the mid-afternoon to take care of this:
Our garden is in serious need of weeding. Unless you know what you are looking for, you can’t tell it’s a garden. It just looks like a wild, over-grown… mess.
Obviously, I have spent the past few weeks coming up with wonderful excuses as to why I could not weed the garden on that particular day. Too muddy. Too many bugs. Too late. Not enough time. I’m hungry. I’m moody. It’s raining. You get the idea.
So, we finally made our way over there yesterday (with a smile on my face). It was weird – it was beautiful and sunny all day, but as soon as we got in to the car to head to the garden, it got really dark. Optimistically, I told Steven we should just go, and if it started to rain, we would head home.
Ha.
We get there and Steven shows me how to pull the weeds out. I start to get in to the groove of it, wondering why I put it off for so long, it’s not that bad…
And the storms roll in. We notice there are very dark clouds behind us. And they are moving fast. We hear lighting, but there is no rain so we keep working (smart, I know). It starts to rain a little bit and we hear a strange howling noise. I run* to the end of the fence to see what is going on, and just see the dark clouds. I run* back to the garden and tell Steven I don’t see anything, and it starts to POUR. We pack everything up as quick as we can and start running* back to the car, which is pretty far away. We don’t make it. The cold rain and hail is hitting us hard so we have to stop outside of the police station.
You can’t tell, but the rain is pouring down and we are standing under a little awning (you can see that the trees are bent over).
And wait.
And wait.
A cop comes out to ask us what the hell we are doing. We explain. I don’t think we looked like gardeners – both of us had workout gear on. Another cop pulls up and asks what we’re doing there. We explain again.
And wait.
And wait, watching the lighting.
Then we nut up and make a made dash for the car. We’re completely soaked by the time we get there.
I think we spent 15 minutes in the garden, if even, before it started pouring**.
It sounds like it was a good thing I was not at work (and I wonder if this is why I didn’t have any work emails in the afternoon?). The wind was so strong (70 mph) that it blew windows out of the “Willis” (Sears) Tower. And apparently the commute was bad? I did say to Steven, “I can’t imagine having to commute home in this.” It’s one thing to get in your car soaking wet and drive a few miles home. It’s entirely different to sit on a freezing cold train for one and a half hours, soaking wet (been there).
So, guess what we are doing today?
Back to the garden…
Have you been caught in the rain lately?
*Ah, running. I am really itching to run again. It felt so good to run in the grass, in the rain. I could have stayed out there all day. Not sure how my legs would have felt.
**And yes, I realize all this rain is helping our garden. We haven’t had to water it in quite some time. I like that.
Themocracy
Yikes that’s scary! That sounds like tornado weather right there. Also? I love how the cops are patrolling their own HQ and are asking the soaked athletes WTH they are doing loitering around for. Too funny!
it hasn’t rained in a while in l.a….it rarely downpours. i kinda miss it. kinda.
I don’t think it’s going to rain here anytime real soon. I had to keep hearing about it over and over again while I waited for my oil change to get done. Heatwave with no rain in sight!
Wow. Seems weird that the cops hassled you — but at least you broke through the weeding barrier and feel ready to get back to it.
Well, everyone knows the worst thugs hang out right in front of the police station. 😉
As for storytelling, read authors you like and notice what they’re doing: how they describe things, what they made you feel, how they immersed you in the scene, and then take a stab at it. Remember what you smelled, tasted, heard, felt, in addition to saw and incorporate the senses that will add to your story. You did that here with the lightning, thunder, rain/hail.
Decide if you want to tell a story or relate a tale. I’d call this post the latter as you include asides to the reader. A story might be considered a little more formal, where you don’t address the reader within it perhaps. Both are fine, they just feel different as you read them. Generally speaking on my blog, my category “taller tales” is comprised of more formally written stories like this one.
Try including dialogue to break up your paragraphs and give more immediacy. “Optimistically, I told Steven we should just go, and if it started to rain, we would head home” might become:
“Steven, we should just go,” I said optimistically. “If it starts to rain, we’ll go home.”
None of these are hard & fast rules. Try what’s useful for you and leave the rest. Hth! 🙂
What a storm! That’s some scary wind. I’m glad you were okay!
I love that you have a garden going. We just bought a house and move next week…next summer will be the summer I commit to my own garden!
Geez – windows blown out of the Sears Tower??? That was one hell of a storm. Good luck with getting back to the garden on another time. I am terrible too about planting things and then just forgetting about them, have done it many times. Now I just stick to berry bushes, which need minimal maintenance and are big enough to stick out above the weeds!
I’ve been avoiding learning how to garden so as to not have to come up with excuses as to why I can’t weed.:)
I wish I was with you and Steven I love to weed! You feel so good when you look back at your work.
You know me and storms that looked like an awesome one to watch from the safety of you home.
I wish you could have been here to help us too! I didn’t mind the weeding, especially since the ground was so wet, like I told you 🙂
I took the whole crew (4 kids) down to the Shedd and the only reason we weren’t stuck in that storm is that we were stuck in line in the parking garage waiting to get out for an hour…LUCKY! We sure heard it though…very spooky…
(and for the record, my front yard looks way worse than your garden…)
I HEARD about the sears tower – that is so crazy. I suppose it is sort of good that the cops asked you what the crap you were doing loitering around their place. I’d get worried if they didn’t!
Other than the weeds, does the garden seem to be doing pretty well?
It is doing mostly well Thanks for asking. There are a few plants that don’t seem to be holding their own, but we figured that would happen.
I was weeding in the morning that day and NONE of my kids believed me that it was going to rain that evening. It was just so nice out. Sure enough a few hours later that awful storm started. Since we were inside, it was pretty cool but I can’t imagine being OUT in it!
Boo for rain! I think we are having a bit too much… standing water in areas = we need a few dry days! But I agree, it’s nice that Mother Nature is taking care of our garden-watering duties for us! 🙂