We spent another evening in the garden last night. This is an amazing time of year. Everything needs to go in the garden right NOW, so we plant, plant, plant, and then plant some more. But this is simple compared to what will come later on in the season. At least it’s cool and breezy this time of year, and we’re all excited to be outside in the brand new green, kind of pleased with our freshly aching backs. An aching back feels almost good if it is a result of meaningful productivity. (“Meaningful productivity” is redundant, I suppose, but I’m leaving it because I need all the emphatic emphasis I can get when it comes to aching backs.)

I worked on potting my plants in the afternoon and then went inside to make a quick supper before we headed back out again. I made another batch of Swamp Monster Soup, except that this time I made some variations on the recipe. Molly’s recipe called for a half to three-quarters of a pound of green garlic, and while I have a nice little row of garlic in the garden, I wasn’t about to pull up a half dozen plants just to make that soup. So I minced three cloves of garlic instead and added a couple chunked potatoes to the broth to thicken the soup. It didn’t work. I ended up with a warm spinach puree that tasted about as good as it sounds. The stuff I made just a few hours earlier at lunch was notably better—that time around I used one green garlic, one garlic clove, and no potato. Apparently, you really need the green garlic for this recipe, which is probably why it’s called “Spinach and Green Garlic Soup”. Duh.

After the kids gagged down their bowls of bile—Yo-Yo came up with worse analogies; and Nickel was the only willing sludge slurper—I pulled out the last of the mint-chocolate chip ice cream and we had cones, as well as a nice little color theme going—too bad it wasn’t St. Patrick’s Day. And then I pulled out granola bars. And later on that night I made a ginormous bowl of popcorn sprinkled with nutritional yeast, and after the kids were in bed, a miffed and hungry Mr. Handsome ate cornflakes.

This morning Mr. Handsome was still shaking his head over last night’s supper: “That’s gotta be one of your most pathetic meals yet.” And later, “Do you make that meal only after you cut the grass?” I have a feeling he’s working on a few more well-placed jabs.

Tonight we’re having hamburgers, potato salad, lettuce salad, brownies, and fruit smoothies. That should make sufficient amends, I think.

So anyway, back to last night, in the garden. A storm was brewing so we worked fast. I put a few more perennials and annuals in the ground, planted one kind of dry beans, and started working on the tomatoes. The kids ran hither and yon, fetching another bale of straw, the hoe, more compost, another flat of plants. Then a few drops of rain would fall and I would yell out more orders, peppered heavily with Move It Kids and Hurry-Hurries.

Mr. Handsome joined us after he finished washing the dishes and cleaning up the house. I patted the tomato seedlings into the ground and he followed along behind with cages and stakes. Yo-Yo and I threw straw all over the place and then we moved on to the basil, parsley, and peppers. The occasional spritz from the sky or rumble of thunder caused me to straighten up and bellow, “Come on! Let’s go, kids! MOVE!” immediately followed by, “Do NOT run in the garden!” We made the hills for the cucumbers and mulched around them but didn’t get them planted before the rumbles of thunder sent us hightailing for the house. I had just finished whipping the kids in and out of the tub when the sky burst open, the icing to our garden cake.

We did it.

(Only the Nicaraguan red beans and the cucumbers left to go. And maybe some more squashes if I feel like it.)

I’m aching today, but not as bad as I anticipated. It’s always good to make things out to be worse than they might be, that way when they turn out bad they don’t seem as awful because you spent all that time imagining the worst. Kind of like how when my family moved from upscale Lancaster PA to a cabin in downscale Leadmine WV and my mother told everyone what a dump it was and then when they came to visit us they were like, “Wow! This place is totally cool—not at all how I was picturing it! You guys have running water and drywall and it’s downright civilized!”

Or, it’s kind of like childbirth. If you think you’re going to cry and scream and slap your husband in the face and swear at the nurses and die and then you don’t, you feel kind of proud of yourself.

And anyways even if you do cry and scream and swear, once you’re holding that wrinkled little monkey-faced baby all of that doesn’t even matter anymore.

Sometimes it pays to anticipate the ugly.

All that to say, I don’t ache too bad today. But! I still am sore enough that I figured I deserved to take it easy. So we’ve done homeschooling (I called a holiday yesterday) and I ran to the greenhouse (to get more plants to stuff in our overflowing garden—yes, I have a problem; no, I’m not going to do anything about it … except complain) while my sis-in-law watched the kids, and I fed my children Swamp Monster Soup for lunch.

But back to the garden. I thought you might like to see what “getting outside to plant the squashes” means. I first made five hills of dirt and showed the girls how to stuff the seeds in the top of them. Then I hauled a load of straw, a bag of old newspapers, and a bucket of water down to the squash patch and I set about mulching it. I dipped the newspapers—several pages thick—and laid them down in the valleys between the squash mountains. And then I piled on the straw, nice and high.

Shoot. That didn’t sound all that hard. But it did make my back hurt.

(The only problem with my little system is that it didn’t rain last night like it was supposed to and now today is windy and the straw is lifting up and the papers are blowing away. I had to run down to the field to collect the sheets of old news, re-cover the ground with them, and then shovel some dirt on top to hold them in place. After a soaking rain, they should pack down good and stay put. I think.)

When Mr. Handsome came home, I gave him a tour of the garden. He was impressed. Which was gratifying. As we passed by the chicken coop, he exclaimed, “What did you do—plant that chicken?”

I took a closer look. It certainly did appear planted.

But then it stood up and looked at us cock-eyed. So it wasn’t planted after all.

I’m rested up now. Time to go pot my Impatiens and petunias.

I’m shot. I worked in the garden all morning and before that I made refried beans, baked the Dutch Puff, started mixing up an oatmeal cake, and made granola. Once out in the garden I planted almost a pound of green beans (Empress), some sweet corn, leeks, the last of the peas, two packets of flowers, and sunflowers. There’s a lot more to do that I’d rather not get into now.

Planting a garden is exhausting and overwhelming. We are already running out of garden space (I feel slightly crazy when I think of all the food we’ll be pulling out of the garden in a couple months) and we haven’t even planted the three kinds of dried beans, the main crop of sweet corn, tomatoes, peppers, butternuts, zucchinis, and cucumbers.

There. I just went and told you all the other things I have to do. So much for not going into the details.

After feeding the kids lunch and getting Nickel down for his nap, I inhaled a piece and a half (and then some more snitches) of oatmeal cake, still warm from the oven, and my coffee. That brings me up to the present moment. I’m still tired. I have lots of brain energy, but my body is crying out for a break.

Right around now is when Mr. Handsome starts snorting and guffawing at my royal wimpiness. He is Mr. Superman—hauling bundles of shingles up onto roofs (I don’t let him tell me how high they are), carrying sheets of plywood on his head, framing up houses, slinking around in filthy crawl spaces, stuffing insulation in sweltering attics—all the live-long day. And then he comes home and mows and tills and takes care of the chickens and digs holes for my plants (if I beg loud enough) and organizes his barn and, and, and… So when I work outside for a couple hours and then moan about my aching body parts, he has absolutely no sympathy.

But hey, I pushed out some whomping huge babies, so really, he’s got nothin’ on me.

Anyway, I made some raspberry-mint tea the other day and it might be just the thing I need now to help me get my energy back. It’s clean, sweet, and fruity-minty, and it’s red. Red equals energy and fire and power and passion, right? In that case, I think this drink ought to have a corner on the kick-in-the-pants market.

Ah, that’s better. Now I’m off to plant the squashes.

Raspberry-Mint Tea

I threw these ingredients together willy-nilly, but I will try my best to give you some measurements to go on. That means, of course, that I’m totally bluffing, acting like there is a formula to this tea, so I suggest you take a brief gander at the ingredient list and then go create your own butt-kicking drink.

1 cup mint leaves, or 2 cups mint sprigs
8 cups water, divided
the juice of one lemon
½ -1 cup sugar
1-2 cups red raspberries

In a small saucepan, simmer the raspberries in two cups of water. Pour the mixture through a fine-mesh sieve, reserving the juice and discarding the seedy pulp.

Put four cups of water in a different saucepan and bring to a boil. Add the tea leaves, turn off the heat, clap on the lid, and let the tea steep for half an hour. Strain, reserving the liquid and discarding the leaves.

Combine the raspberry juice and the mint tea, the lemon juice, and the sugar. Add another couple cups of water—or ice, if you want to cool the tea faster—and chill.

To serve, pour over ice and garnish with a sprig of mint.