Mulching Marathon

I can think of a lot of M-words to describe today:

Muggy May Morning

Memorial Day

Mulching Marathon

I spent a week getting all the flower beds weeded on our little estate. Then it took another week to get things trimmed and edged. Finally, today we were ready for mulch.

Leroy used Gerald's truck to fetch two loads of mulch. He shoveled it off and I spread it evenly around the plants. This is the rock garden. The mountain pinks are over for this year.

When we got to this point of the second load I began to wonder if men who don't have wives realize what they are missing. A man would probably be satisfied with a couple shrubs around the house surrounded by stones on top of black plastic---or nothing at all. But a woman must have flowers all over the place---annuals and perannials. Flowering bushes that need trimmed--and sprayed--and watered--and fertilized. So she buys bottles of stuff to make things grow and other bottles of stuff to kill the things she doesn't want. She plants bulbs that must be dug up every year and stored in the basement over winter so they can be planted again the next spring. And all this digging and trimming and mulching requires the help of a man. A man who is so flower-illiterate he is able to identify only roses and daisies.
So why do men plague themselves with wives who make them spend a muggy Memorial Day mulching flowers? It must be because they didn't read the fine print at the bottom of the script before they said "I do." And now it's too late!
The roses are just starting to bloom. I know already what he will say when I bring the first ones into the house. "See. I don't need to spend a lot of money to buy you roses. We can raise our own." He really doesn't mind helping keep things in shape around here. There's enough farmer left in him to actually enjoy it.