(our gardening clogs)

Saturday morning something transpired that has got me wondering if Millie has a future in botany.

Allow me to explain.

At 9:30 AM

I was outside weeding, Millie was in her room playing with “Sparkle Barbie-Q” (yes, as in BBQ) and “Sparkle Kevin”, Jan was home from basket ball and getting ready to head off to Home Depot and Clara lay dreaming (hopefully sweet dreams) in her crib.

At 10:00 AM

Millie decided to join me in my weeding endeavors. This was her first time weeding so I taught her the proper weeding technique, as in yoinking out those nasty suckers all the way down to the roots. Millie was a born weeder. She was awesome! So awesome that we made up a song that went something like this,

“I’ve got a daughter and she knows how to weed! She pulls ‘um by the roots, the roots the root’in, tooti’n roots.”

There were more verses and the tune changed every time, but you get the gist.  Millie was having a grand time.

Then she walked up to me and started to explain the horticulture which surrounded us.

Millie: Mom, do you see that (pointing to a weed) is is a “oblasis”. It is Italian. And you’ve got to be careful because it can really stick ya. It can stick ya in the knee, like a jelly fish, and then you wont be able to win the race. Or it can stick ya in the nose OR in the fingers and then you wont be able to wiggle them anymore.

Mom: Seriously? Wow! I’ll be careful. And from Italy, no less!

Millie: No from I-T-A-L-I-A-N.

(I explained to her that if something was Italian that meant it was from the country of Italy – “copy that”).

She then went on to explain to me that “if you don’t pick an oblasis  it will stay firm and then it will help the corn to grow and grow and grow!”

What the? I started to wonder if she’s been watching too much David Attenborough.

Later as I was hacking away at the rose bush on the side of our drive way Millie came up to me. She was carrying the “garden scnizzors” and she was using them to “sniz” the weeds.

Millie: Hey mom, do you know where any fleeps are?

Mom: I am not sure, what is a fleep?

Millie: (exasperated) You know! A FLEEP! I need to sniz some.

In case you have an inquiring mind, like mine, it turns out a fleep is a petal of dandelion.

So we found her some more of those and she got right to work, snizing them.

I carried on cutting back the rose bush which, by the way, I have NO idea what I am doing when it comes to this kind of thing, weeds sure, but anything else I don’t know what the heck to do with it! I mentioned to Millie that her Papa is a wonderful gardener.

Millie: Oh, yes? Like me?

Mom: Yes! He has beautiful flowers and yummy vegetables and when we go there to visit maybe you can ask him if you can pick some of his strawberries and raspberries. I bet he’d let you help him weed too.

Millie: Ooooohhhh! Does he also have peaches?

Mom: I think so. He is growing lots of trees but it takes a long time for them to grow and it is a lot of work.

Millie: Oh! Then he really needs my help – especially if it is hard and takes a long time.

Mom: No doubt!

At the end of our two hour garden tour of duty. We’d accomplished a fair amount.

Filled two garbage cans with: weeds, the remains of my hacked up rose bush, and grass that we dug up to make way for flower beds (BTW Jan when got back from Home Depot and helped out a TON!)

“What beds? I see no flower beds!” You say? This is a BEFORE shot..

Looky!

To the victor, the spoils!

Look at what our rosebush gave us…

We had enough roses to fill five small vases

in Millie's room

in Clara's room

in the entry way

And the  pièce de résistance is sitting pretty in the kitchen

Now our entire house smells like a Crabtree & Evelyn rose drawer liner – only a million times better!

If gardening was always this fun I swear, I’d be out there every day!