Saturday, October 16, 2010

Let's talk dirt

230 tulip bulbs have been buried in our yard. 230. Their 30 remaining friends wait to join the others in the north east patch of dirt on our property. 230.

And there is a crater in my trowel-yielding hand the size of Yellowstone. Broken blister. Dirt caked. 230.

The landscapers left us a mountain of dirt, by request, just in case we needed extra wheel-barrows-full to fill in holes. It sits near the curb out our front door. A neighbor took a truck load to fill a hole the size of a tree in his yard. Another neighbor hauled shovel and barrow up and down the street, back and forth, over and over again. And we have been hauling and spreading, shoveling, wheeling, dumping, spreading, filling the large holes in our yard, and 230 other small holes. And yet no matter how many loads of dirt we take, the mountain does not shrink. It is a miracle. It stands there, miraculous, unchanged and unchanging. The miracle dirt that does not fail or diminish.

It eyeballs us. Sinners. Waiting for the snow plows. Waiting. In majestic miraculousness.

And now I have a Yellowstone-shaped crater in my right hand. Trowel blister. From digging 230 six-inch-deep holes. Six inches apart. Exactly. Ish.

Only 30 more to go.

3 comments:

Tiffany said...

That's a lot of tulips! And dirt!

And in other news, how come the miracles we get are rarely the miracles we want?

Malcolm Purcell said...

Just think how pretty they will be- 30 more isn't THAT many more to do!

Lisa said...

I can't wait to visit you come spring! You have me thinking about getting some bulbs in the ground myself.