So I’m a little late in posting my apricot leaves. Here they are in all their fall glory.

And here they are with snow.

Finally got some snow that mattered. Well, it’s only seven inches or so. But the layering completely transformed the world. Love the way snow does that.

What struck me this morning when I saw the backyard was how clean it looked. I’d worked like the dickens (and what is a dickens?) late this fall pulling weeds. Piles of pulled weeds from years before were also carted away. Was a lot of work, but I was out to build up my stamina. Because of my injured leg, I lost all strength, gained too much weight.

I loved being able to work outside again. When all the work made the yard look so good, the time spent there was heartening. So this morning I just had to share the change.

And dickens? Well, it looks like Shakespeare made it up. It first appeared in the Merry Wives of Windsor in 1600. He created over 2,000 words that we still use.

I garden from the window. I look out at the corn, my leg propped up. I’ve been perched in my chair for nearly a month. I sliced my shin to the bone, and here I sit. By the window. For long periods of time.

The slow recovery is making me an armchair gardener.

After stitching me up, the first thing the doctor said was “no gardening.” She doesn’t know me personally so for her to pick this one activity out of the air as something to cancel really felt like a warning.

So I’ve watched the weeds take over. I’ve watched the corn move from heat-stunted sticks to gangly stalks with waving tassels. They shot up after the first good soaking rain. Throughout the wind and heat and smoke in early summer, I watered. But it seemed futile. I was just barely keeping them alive. I almost gave up but couldn’t willfully let the garden go. Some friends did, and it was painful for them.

And when the rains began, I tripped over a piece of metal flashing.

So here I sit knowing more than ever the different phases that corn grows through and how all the plants respond. The rattling at night in the wind. The dangling leaves, their angular curves. The tassels sprouting like antennas.

I now understand the Corn Dance.

How I was wringing my hands waiting for the corn to come up! I planted sweet corn and blue corn. I was most curious about the blue corn. Word is, the cobs belong to an old line of corn from the Pecos Pueblo. When the people fled to escape Spanish invaders in 1837, they headed for the Jemez Mountains, and took their kernels with them.

As I said, I was very curious about this corn. I should have been more curious about the sweet corn. Well, I am now. One is definitely albino.

Keeping pace with the crop, this little guy is about three inches high. The leaves are sturdy and robust. They’re also white. I may have an anomaly here. There isn’t much information on the web about albino corn. The last year of research was 1959. However, there are lots of sites for the Albino Corn Snake.

Albino seems to be a misnomer because the snakes are white with orange, brown or black markings. Actually, really pretty. They got their name because they hung out in corn cribs, back in the days when we all had those, waiting for rodents. The first citation of the corn snake is 1676.

I’m just glad that these snakes don’t go for albino corn. Even if they did, I’d still keep it. How fun to have a stalk of albino corn. Anyone else have one?

The things that grow around here!

In no time at all, I had the old pathway on the way to destruction. Took a trowel and dug out all the rocks embedded in the clay. Then dumped the crushed rock, evened it out and edged the lower end with bricks.

This was easy, and I love pathways. The only problem came afterwards.

I was standing back and looking at the patio area and the other pathways. Now I want to change all of it. And that’s a lot of work. But needed.

I laid the flagstone and the first year it looked great. Even the second year my tiny flagstone patio was quite a pleasant spot to hangout.

Then the rains came.

This means runoff from the mountains above my house. This means silt galore. This means eventually bricks and stones and fencing end up buried. When I first moved here, I stuck in a shovel, hit something solid and discovered an entire brick pathway completely covered.

But for now this new one will do. If it doesn’t become a reminder to redo the whole yard!

I’m getting there. But with so much to do—cleaning up the beds, re-potting this and that—the overwhelm is, well, overwhelming.

Yesterday I stained the deck. Wow, it looks great. Next comes my potting bench. I love that bench. So many things during the planting season need work-bench time. And it will be beautiful with a dark stained.

Yesterday James gave me two buckets of crushed rock. I’d hoped my cobblestone path would work, but stepping on the stones is rather precarious. He actually slipped there two winters ago and went all the way down. So I’m redoing the path. That’s one project.

And, of course, there’s a new raised bed that needs filling. I want to make another one out back. I need to uproot all the bulbs in one spot and put them over there. On and on.

Like I said, I’m getting there.

In the past I’ve used light bulbs for starting seeds. This year I added heating pads just to see what would happen. My goodness, things took quickly.

Seeds truly like warm, moist conditions. And my seeds this year couldn’t be happier. In two days the squash seeds had sprouted. The tomato plants will perfect when I plant them. I planted seeds mid-April instead of the last week in March. The heating pad certainly speeds things up. We’ll see how they do once in the ground.

Today marks the day I became a botany researcher. No, I didn’t get another degree. I planted kale seeds. Let me explain.

After years of experimenting, I found my favorite kale: Red Winter. I loved the purple-edged, crinkly green leaves. The taste was the epitome of earthened green. I grew it for years.

But last year I couldn’t find any seed; all the nurseries were out. I had pasted the packet in my garden journal so called the company. They weren’t retailers but out of courtesy sent me two complimentary packets.

From the beginning those seeds behaved oddly. They came up slower and the seedlings weren’t as robust as previous years. Then they started leafing out. I watched and watched and those plants never did have those purple-edged, crinkly green leaves. The leaves were smooth and not purpled. They had a mild, yellow-green taste.

I let all the plants go to seed and gathered the pods in the fall. I hulled the pods last night. I’d pasted a few of the seeds in my journal and compared both batches of seeds. Seed#1 was black, tiny and round. Seed#2 is twice the size, brown-red and flat.

I planted Seed#2 today, and in another pot I planted Red Russian Kale seeds. We’ll see what happens in the kale lab this year.

Last summer my best friend died. She was the best gardener. And while moving the lettuce box (that her husband made, that she eventually passed on to me), my thoughts trailed off to her hat.

I got to thinking that I should have asked for it after she died. Then today oodles of yard sale signs lined the road. James and I stopped at all of them. I spotted a hat, tried it on, knew it was mine. “How much?”

“A couple of bucks,” said the man.

“How about 50 cents?” I countered.

“It’s yours.”

And I got Peggy’s hat—or one so similar she’ll be close by this summer as I dig in the dirt. I’ll hear her promptings alongside of me. And I’ll remember the time I pulled all the mint from around her water pump. And the time she helped pull weeds when I moved to a new house.

She was always wearing her hat, and I know my new hat will make her smile.

As usual, my back aches, my pains are numerous. Yesterday was the first day I’ve spent in the garden following a very long winter in front of the woodstove. But it always feels so great being in the dirt again and deadheading flowers. Aren’t you supposed to do that in the fall?

Several years ago I stopped fall clean-up because I like how the spent leaves fold over and help protect the roots. I’m mainly thinking of lilies and irises. Yes, it looks a little sloppy, but I think the garden likes it. More natural. When I get things cleaned up in spring, a scattering of mulch then tidies things up.

Also as usual, the older I get the more spring chores leak over into the summer. It’s also worth noting that I don’t fret as much. If all things don’t get done, the world—or the garden—doesn’t fall apart. It just looks more wild; and that’s not so bad.