…There’s Nothing to See Here. No, really.

I’m a pretty half-empty kind of gal.  No way around it.

Today I’m donning a  sun hat, a scarf around my neck and an over-sized shirt (I look like my Grandma.  Which isn’t bad, she was a beautiful woman…except that I look like my Grandma when she was 70), wielding a big shovel and trying to dig what is really probably a 5 X 10 patch of garden in which to plant our vegetables.  Our sad, sorry-looking little veggie plants that me and the kids started from seeds which are currently taking residence in my kitchen.

Here is why my best efforts at showing my kids how plants grow and where food actually comes from will be an epic fail:

1. My property has what you might deem an Australian-style, Biblical-type plague of ground squirrels.  I will have to fortify this plot of garden with cinder blocks, barbed-wire and Brillo Pads in order to keep them out.  And it still won’t keep them out.
2. I’m already exhausted digging this thing, and it’s only about 2 inches deep so far.  I’m sweating like a high school wrestler in a sauna before a big meet….and I still feel fat.
3. In recent years carpenter ants have taken up residence all around my house, and aside from their hills, which rival the 25 foot high African termite hills featured in the National Geographic from time to time, I sprayed ant poison around last year willy-nilly.   I don’t THINK I sprayed any in the garden area, but…can’t remember….Mmmmmm.  Yummy.
4. This area I’m digging is currently covered in grass.  No matter how fast I pick the weeds and crab-grass out, I feel like I will lose the battle and it will become a scene out of “Little Shop of Horrors”.
5. My three boys will likely demolish it….either by thinking they’re helping, or intentionally for fun.  Either way.

My goal is to have enough watermelon, green onions, lettuce, tomatoes and carrots to feed an army.  That’s the wistful picture in my head.  A beautiful cornucopia of abundance.

If I get enough of any one of those to make an infant-sized bowl of salad, I’ll consider it a victory.

I’m not holding my breath.

Being half-empty sucks.