Garden Widows

Everyone knows a widow. Some are Women Whose Husbands Have Died. They are the saddest kind and receive tons of sympathy from everyone, until they emerge from their grief and start living again and maybe eventually find a new mate. That's a happy ending. 

Then there are Golf Widows, alone every weekend when the weather allows. Their spouses have decided that driving a little ball into a hole with a stick from a great distance is more interesting than being with them. Since 71.6% of men in the U.S. are golfers, Golf Widows have plenty of company and thus usually can find a sympathetic ear from another one of the abandoned. 

There is another kind of widow that suffers in silence and thus elicits no sympathy from anyone, and that is the Garden Widow. I am one of those. During official gardening season I could drop dead right in the middle of the kitchen and Mitch would hastily step over me on his way out to "visit his vegetables while the light is good."

Or else he's already out there, preparing the soil, or planting the seeds, or weeding and watering, possibly mulching, snipping here and pruning there. Adding treatments for pests and diseases. And there's more weeding and watering. And still always weeding, the weeding, and finally the harvesting, the picking, the plucking, and well, you see what I mean. 

Sometimes I get out there and help but the bugs, the mosquitos, the bees -- I'm allergic after all. I carry an Epi-pen. I might die.

Okay, sure -- having the fresh vegetables is nice, but it's like this: Now we are eating cucumbers at every meal. Then it's peas, or tomatoes or lettuce and next it's squash and broccoli or carrots and potatoes and it's too bad if you don't want anymore, it's too bad if we've had them the last six nights, still you must eat, eat, eat them all. It's their time.

I love winter.