My nails are dirty. I was digging in the dirt this afternoon planting some flowers and such! I rarely, almost never, get down and mess with the earth. How utterly refreshing to just putter in the soil.
I liked getting my little orange bucket with the potting soil and my kitchen sizzors and a little shovel. I knew where everything was because I did this about two months ago for the first time ever. Today however, I forget to put on my gloves.

I found a huge colony of ants. Instead of just pulling up a chair and watching them live their lives....I ran for the andro (ant killer). In Florida ants bite. They all bite....hahaha....look how quick I can rationalize that.

I spent about an hour digging holes and clipping extra leaves on my vegetable plants and I felt such a connection to the earth and the sky and even the years gone by.
Hey that rhymes.

As I lifted the layers of mulch, the cedar and wood chips, I remembered when the first layers of mulch and plastic to keep the weeds out were added. We're talkin' about 1992ish. I secretly was looking for a sign of something that was buried way back then. When I remember the 90's I remember a lot of happy times here. (Not that I'm not happy now, it's just life seemed a 10X's more challenging, yet fun back then.) There was nothing. No traces of the past, but my mind was swimming in memories. It was kinda' nice. Nothing down in the soil except for oak tree roots, sand and a few rocks. Where I was digging, there weren't even any bugs or worms (thank GOD...hahaha). I mixed some potting soil with some of the dirt and sand and then planted two "painted lady" (a beautiful hybiscus with a wine colored throat) and an old ivy plant that Norman had given me before he left 5 years ago.

Actually all three plants that I planted were house plants. I hope they make it.
I was careful to water them and douse them with a dilute solution of miracle grow. My hands are clean but my nails are filthy. So nice to have something more to do with my hands and my mind and soul than just Karate, Karate, Karate.....