Queen of the mountain

So, when I was a kid we loved to play King of the Mountain. My friend down the street had a fabulous dirt pile in her backyard, and we loved throwing each other down in the dirt to see who could reign supreme as the King or Queen - although we never said Queen when we played even though there were more girls than boys playing. Somehow it was fun getting thrown down a pile of dirt, and we would jump up looking for more dirt in the eye or dirty scraped elbows.

I loved to play in the dirt, both organized play as described above and spontaneous play. Digging in dirt was fun! You could find worms or rocks; you could make mud pies; you could try to get other kids to eat your mud pies, and you were filthy at the end of it. What could be better? I was beginning to think this type of play was not accepted from adults, excepts for maybe digging in sand at the beach - which is also a favorite pastime as long as there is a drink to go with that sand. But I was wrong.

I have never been enticed by gardening, but I planted spring bulbs in our front flower bed on the weekend. As I was raking dirt and digging holes and measuring to make sure my bulbs weren't too close to each other and were planted deep enough, it hit me...adults play in the dirt as much as kids; it's called gardening. I started by pulling out all of the annuals we planted in the summer and cutting back the perennials. I had to dig up our dahlia bulbs to store them for the winter. I enjoyed this more than I expected. My hands were dirty; my knees were wet from kneeling in the flower bed, and I was in heaven!! Ok, so maybe not heaven...my back was hurting from bending over, then about halfway through my husband suggested I get the padded cushion I bought for him to kneel on when he planted the summer bulbs. Anyway, I loved it!!

It also fascinates me that these tulip and hyacinth bulbs will lay dormant in the frozen ground all winter, then in spring these beautiful blooms will appear. I just can't fathom that anything in the ground during the winter here with snow piled on top of it can survive and produce such a gorgeous plant in the spring. So, not only did I get to relive a favorite childhood pastime of playing in the dirt (although I didn't get to throw anyone down a big dirt pile), I'm going to see the fruits of my labor in the springtime. The before picture is not too exciting, but wait until spring!

I will post pics of the blooms when they come up. For those of you who live in a warm climate, you really can't imagine the pure jubilation when you see the first green plants sprouting out of the ground in spring.

I was definitely Queen of the Flowerbed.