pameladean

Several weeks ago, when it was warm and forecast to stay that way for at least another week, my email box filled up with tempting offers from seed and bulb companies. I held out and held out and suddenly succumbed to a batch of white tulips, a batch of red ones, and, apparently, two lily bulbs. The price was very good indeed. As time went by I wondered briefly from time to time where the bulbs were, but the events of November have generally been so horrifying and distracting that I never wondered long enough to recheck my email to track the package after I got a notification that the order had shipped.

It arrived over the weekend. I put it on the coffee table in despair and did my weekend things. This morning I was awakened by the second tree service I got in touch with, letting me know that Cory would be over in a little while. I put on a random assortment of clothing; fortunately I'd taken my medication already, but I hadn't had any tea. Cory was very pleasant and gave me an estimate of slightly over a thousand dollars for the work. I made some sound about this and he assumed I was relieved that it wasn't more. He explained that it wasn't more because the trimming was mostly very straightforward except for the Chinese elm.

Anyway, this was all very daunting and awful, though hardly on a par with other daunting and awful events recently. If all I had to worry about was paying to trim the trees, I'd be much happier. In any case, it was a lovely day, not all that warm, but warmer than it's going to be and quite sunny. I didn't think the ground was frozen yet. It lacked that hard lumpy texture, and bare patches of earth were just muddy. So after the nice tree man left, and after the tea and the acetaminophen for a nagging headache, and after putting in some laundry and despairing of everything (which happens at least once a day at the moment) and getting over it, I collected gardening gloves and a shovel and the bulbs and went outside.

In palmier days I got most of my bulbs from White Flower Farm. White Flower Farm will practically send you the history of planting methods plus the current extremely detailed recommendation, a little separate sheet for each type of bulb. Park Seed (which was apparently subsumed by Jackson and Perkins at some point when I wasn't looking) sent a sheet with basic instructions for each major category of bulb. White Flower Farm also labels its bags. Park Seed/whoever probably does too if they are not heavily discounted and made up into lots to be got rid of before it's too late, but these basically said how many bulbs each bag contained and where they came from (Holland). I think one of them did say it had tulips, and what kind they were, and another indicated that what was in it would have red flowers. The bag of what I think were lily bulbs was quite innocent of any description.

I found some places in the front yard where nothing appeared to be growing, dug some holes one by one, put in three to five tulip bulbs per hole with a fine disregard for how far apart the bulbs were supposed to be, slid the lump of damp soil from the shovel back in place, and stomped things down. Where they were nearby I scuffed fallen maple leaves over the stomped earth. Then I dug an individual hole for each lily bulb and filled it back up and scuffed leaves over them too. It may be that I am only feeding the mice and squirrels. They don't eat lilies, but they are quite capable of digging them up just to say Ewwww.

I guess we'll see. I have no idea what anything will be like come spring.

When I made the order, I thought of the line "busily planning for the resurrection," which I mistakenly associated with Iris Murdoch's husband's essay about looking after her when she had dementia. When I told

elisem I had ordered bulbs, she quoted the line more accurately and attributed it to E.B. White. A quick search on her phone proved her correct. It's possible that Iris Murdoch's husband referred to that line in his essay, but just as possible that I misfiled the scene in my head.

Pamela