Spring Planting - Magpie Tales

This week's image prompt from Tess @ Magpie Tales is below.  To read other contributors click  HERE.


Courtesy of Tess @ Magpie Tales



When the children left, it was the garden that absorbed her day, tending to it, creating things anew.  Winters were harsher with less to do, although she took joy from the small birds that came to feed, the goldfinches, and blue tits, and many more who entertained her through her kitchen window.  It was just like studying people in a way, they fought and got on, the bigger ones stronger and therefore more bullish when it came to getting their share of food.

But now it is Spring, and despite her aged bones she can get out to the garden again.  Her heart leaps a little, as it did every year at the early spring flowers, snowdrops the first, so small and pure and brave, ready to fight off the early frost, proving nature is full of contradictions.  Should it not be a less delicate flower that takes on such a noble quest?  Logic would say yes, but nature likes to tease that way.  A bit like her old body which aches as she kneels down to clear out the weeds, putting in a new bed of bulbs. 'Blue Iris' this year, 'on special' at the garden centre.  Why does her body ache when her mind feels as agile as a young girl?  She is glad for the new bulbs, their blue will appear in August with the warmth of summer days, and she will sit and admire them, remembering the ache they caused her knees, and smile.

Her grandmother had 'Blue Iris', lots of them.  'They are very reliable', she used to tell her as a girl, they never let you down.  Oh yes, it won't be long until August, the days will saunter by as they do now.  Little did she know all those years before as she ran with the legs of youth, that some pleasures last generations.