I have never been a gardener.

This makes me feel like a misfit in my family. My mother is a wonderful gardener. She had an enormous vegetable garden in the suburbs before it became fashionable to do so. Her mother was also an avid gardener. She escaped the demands of 11 children by spending time with her flowers. There are photos of my grandma in her garden and she looks as if she is having a wonderful time, but I figure any activity that would allow you to escape the demands of cooking for 13 people three times a day would be a welcome relief.

My sister is also an amazing gardener. She has flowerbeds everywhere and a raspberry patch that produces 3 gallons of berries a day. She is always expanding gardens and digging things up and putting new things in. Her entire yard is beautifully landscaped and all I can think is that it looks like an awful lot of work.

I am a bad gardener.

My attempts are gardening have never been successful. One year, I planted flowers I thought would do well, and they did so well I created an impenetrable jungle. I had flowers as tall as me. I couldn’t get in to weed, and after a while, I stopped trying. The next year I tore it all up and mulched it. Mulching is not gardening.

The next year, I planted rose bushes. The deer ate every rosebud as soon as it appeared. Then I planted peonies. They wilted in the sun. I planted lupines in a place I thought would be perfect for them. They never bloomed. Whatever sort of green thumb my mother and grandmother and sister have seems to have missed me entirely.

Only recently have I had the courage to admit the truth: I don’t like gardening.

I was sure that if I just worked a bit harder, all the pleasant feelings everyone seems to have about gardening would magically land on me. But I’ve realized that I just don’t enjoy gardening. It feels like work to me, and not work I enjoy. So when my husband, Peter, and I bought the new condominium, one of my first thoughts was, “Now I don’t have to feel guilty about not gardening!”

I left my rakes and shovels and gardening gloves behind, and I was delighted to be moving to a place where the only outdoor space I had was a balcony. Gardening was the furthest thing from my mind when a funny thing happened.

I wanted to plant something.

Arriving in the midsummer, there wasn’t a lot of selection. But I found some plant hangers and pots and six different kinds of plants and I repotted them and made attractive groupings until I had eight pots hanging in a row on the balcony, filled with brightly colored foliage. They are out there now, waving in the breeze. They have already grown since I put them out last weekend. I call them my “balcony babies,” and those eight pots are giving me more satisfaction than anything I’ve ever planted.

“The balcony is beautiful!” Peter said last night. I believe it’s the first compliment I’ve ever gotten on my gardening efforts. And finally, I feel at peace.

I do have an inner gardener after all.

She just works in a smaller medium than the giant gardens my mother and grandmother had or the sprawling flowerbeds my sister creates. My gardens are tiny. They are in little red pots hanging from the railing and, quite honestly, I think they are perfect.

Till next time,

Carrie

Carrie Classon's memoir is called "Blue Yarn." Learn more at CarrieClasson.com.

DISTRIBUTED BY ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION FOR UFS

The dogs are missing me.

My husband, Peter, predicted this after we moved. "All the dogs will miss you!" he said. "They are going to be looking for the Treat Lady. Don't you think that's sad?"

I did not. First of all, I didn't believe it. Just because I passed out treats for a couple of years to the dogs didn't mean they would expect to see me again. Just because they remembered me when they saw me didn't mean I would ever cross their minds if they didn't see me.

But yesterday I got two text messages from dog owners claiming their dogs were missing me. Both included photos of the supposedly bereaved dogs. One showed a dog looking mournfully into the camera. The second was a photo of two dogs staring at the trail where I used to meet them on my hike in the evenings. The photo was captioned: "They look for you every night."

I am dubious.

For starters, the two dogs who are supposedly still looking for me are the border collies who attended my going-away party, and if you've ever met a border collie, you know how clever they are. I'm certain they remember the party and knew why we were throwing it. If they are still watching the trail, it is likely in an effort to find my replacement. They probably also have a posting on Craigslist: "Seeking middle-aged woman to provide refreshments an hour before owner gets home. Serious applicants only."

The other dog was Remington and if Remington is missing anyone, it would be Peter, who tossed exactly six goldfish crackers to him every day of the pandemic. Peter called him a "circus dog," and told him it was a shame they no longer hired dogs to entertain under the big top. Remington's goldfish cracker-catching skills are probably getting rusty, but that has nothing to do with me.

It's not the dogs who are missing me. I miss being the Treat Lady.

There is nothing stopping me from handing out dog treats. Every day, I walk through new neighborhoods, seeing new sights, learning my way around. At first, I had to consult my phone constantly as I wandered, with no idea where I was or where I was headed. Now I have a two-mile area in all directions pretty well explored. There are lots of folks walking dogs everywhere I go. But I haven't handed out any treats. I'm not quite sure why.

Maybe it's because I don't feel like I am a resident yet and handing out treats seems like something a host would do for a guest. "Oh! Aren't you a nice dog! It's so lovely to meet you. You look like you deserve a treat!" Maybe it's because I'm in a more urban environment and I worry someone might mistake me for a Secret Dog Poisoner instead of the Treat Lady.

Last night, Peter and I went to hear music in the park. There were dogs everywhere. Some were clearly veterans of the concert scene. They wagged their tails in time to the music as they walked by, too cool to notice strangers. Some were new to the whole thing, excited by the sounds and people and music. One young puppy caught sight of the pizza Peter and I were sharing and made a beeline toward us.

"Stop!" The puppy's owner said. The puppy reluctantly retreated.

I wasn't going to share my pizza with the puppy. But I wished I had a treat. Maybe I'll be the Treat Lady again before I know it.

Till next time,

Carrie

Carrie Classon's memoir is called "Blue Yarn." Learn more at CarrieClasson.com.

DISTRIBUTED BY ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION FOR UFS

Years ago, I had trouble with my septic system. If you’ve ever had that kind of trouble, you know what kind of trouble it can be.

I was living in my old farmhouse out in the middle of the woods and had no idea where the sewage went until it suddenly went nowhere. That’s when I called the septic guy.

The house (and presumably the septic tank) was 100 years old, and I had never had occasion to get overly curious about where the septic tank was or exactly how it worked -- until it didn’t.

The septic guy located the tank and then made what I thought was a shocking comment. “There’s another one here somewhere,” he announced, and headed off into the woods, looking for another septic tank cover.

“There are two septic tanks?” I asked, confused.

“At least!” he said.

“Isn’t that unusual?”

“Not at all! I’ve seen up to five!”

“Five septic tanks?”

“Yup!” The septic guy was now searching through the underbrush like a hunter stalking his quarry. He smiled broadly. “The septic business is always an adventure!” he said.

I had honestly never thought of it that way.

Yesterday we had a somewhat similar situation under our feet. Fortunately, this one did not involve sewage, but only the floor -- which has been getting worse by the day.

The humidity has gotten the better of the inexpensive engineered wood flooring installed by the fellow who flipped the condo before selling it to us. The damage started as a buckle in the hallway, spread to some ripples in the kitchen, and is now making its way across the living room like furrows in a freshly plowed field. My husband, Peter, has had it.

“I don’t even like the color!” he said, looking out over the rippling black landscape. “I think we should rip it all out!”

And so yesterday a nice flooring man named Hayden came to visit. Hayden tut-tutted in what I thought was an appropriate way when he saw the ridges running the length of our floor.

“What’s underneath it?” Hayden wanted to know. Like my old septic system, it had never occurred to me to investigate.

"Rip it up!" Peter told him. “We’re getting rid of it anyway.” Hayden grabbed a chunk of the engineered wood and pulled.

“Parquet,” Hayden said.

“Excuse me?” I didn’t know what Hayden said, but it certainly couldn’t have been “parquet.”

“There’s parquet flooring underneath,” Hayden said, pulling off another board so we could see. “And it looks like it’s in pretty good shape, except for the paint they dripped on it.”

Peter and I stared at the beautiful oak parquet hidden beneath the dreadful rippling flooring. So now Hayden will be refinishing the parquet floors we never knew we had.

That evening, I talked to Vern, the guy at the front desk. He remembers Elizabeth, who owned our condo from the year it was built until she died last year. She was a character, and a bit of a hoarder, but apparently a wonderful person. “I’m betting she threw down carpet on that parquet and forgot all about it!” Vern said.

Today I’m grateful that Elizabeth never got around to remodeling, grateful the flipper was too lazy to remove the old flooring before he put in the new, grateful that Peter got sick enough of the growing bumps to do something about them. I keep going back to the hole Hayden ripped in the floor and looking at that lovely parquet hidden just beneath the surface all this time.

There are adventures everywhere, and not just in the septic business.

Till next time,

Carrie

Carrie Classon’s memoir is called, “Blue Yarn.” Learn more at CarrieClasson.com.

DISTRIBUTED BY ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION