WATERING TREES

I am watering the trees today.

Elmer - a maple we dug up back on the farm and relocated to the front yard.

Baby Tree, and Baby Tree's friend (Martha didn't want Baby Tree to be lonely) - two small cedars just out past the garden.

The little scraggly hazel tree next to the driveway.

I set the hose on barely a drizzle, drag it out to the base of a tree, then let it run for 30-40 minutes. Longer, if I forget to check the clock. So I'm in-and-out, in-and-out. Between jaunts outside to drag the long heavy hose around the yard, I'm switching over laundry, weeding around the flowers, trying to find something that Helen can eat that she actually has an appetite for, short stabs at poking through the mountain of books and papers on my kitchen counter.

Maybe. . . maybe I'll make it back into my bedroom closet sometime today and resume the task of excavating that dismal abyss. Maybe.

Today, I don't have a car - my "big kids" have the vehicles either at work or out running errands. When I'm outside, I don't have a phone. Not too tied up with other things - it's a good day to water the trees.

In and out, in and out. Like a cat, that's always on the wrong side of the door. Like a 6-year-old on holiday.

Like an old lady watering trees.