I think we all need a little break from politics so this is a diary about how my dog and my garden help me to cope with the frustration I feel with the political situation, world wide.
Well thanks be to heaven, I have the sweetest female dog named Lady, a bit a mongrel, but beautiful all the same. When I reach the stress level in my daily life of politics and blogging I take a short break and go outside. The minute I step outside the door Lady is by my side and follows and watches me everywhere I go. As I look and inspect my plants she puts her nose in them and sniffs as if to share my pleasure.
She waits patiently by the gate that separates her from my vegetable garden while I check my strawberries to see if any are ripe yet, knowing when I come out she will get her special petting time.
My plants are my great pleasure in life at this point. I have over 150 container plants,(most of which I started from cuttings) plus tiny vegetable garden and of course my much prized staghorn ferns. If you don’t know about staghorns, they grow on boards hanging from the fence or tree or anywhere you want to put them. They have luscious long fronds that are shaped like horns and thus the name and a shield frond that will eventually wrap around any object they are attached to and in a few years produce baby ferns that build and build as a colony until they can become monstrous, We had one that measured 4 feet across and 3 feet deep, just filled with dozens of ferns.
Strolling through the plants I stop and inspect each one, at least thirty times a day (have a lot of stress ). I know the day they first sprouted, the day the first leaves poke thought the soil, the day there flower buds finally burst into bloom, the day the first strawberry turns red, and oh so many more such things that seem to interest only me and not at all the visitors I drag around to have a look.
To me both my dog and my garden are sublime. They bring me back to earth to enjoy the fruits of it and give me a brief respite from the horrors of the world and then it’s back into the house and onto the computer and checking Booman to see what comments I have missed.
I want to know how you cope with stress; about your animals or pets and your garden if you have one.
