fascinating dirt

today i picked up a shovel and decided to make myself useful in my mom's garden. gardening intimidates me, but i would love to learn how, so i told myself i would be my mom's number one go-to girl this year in her gardening (she's a busy woman, so she will probably appreciate the extra help). plus i wanted to enjoy the warming weather (it was fifty-something degrees today, which is not warm, but a definite improvement over last week), so it was an allaroundwinwin situation.

my mom was also in the backyard, working on the garden and watching grandkids, but she handed the shovel over to me and i turned over and loosened the soil, incorporating minerals and other stuff into the soil to prep it for planting. i also removed a good amount of rocks (i told my nephews today that the garden grew lots of rocks over the winter), and pulled up some old roots.

and, i found some earthworms. this was my favorite part. apparently, finding earthworms in your soil is a positive thing, because it's a good indicator that the soil is conducive to growing things. or something like that. of course, my first reaction to finding an earthworm is oh gross! but then i take a deep breath and a second look, and send positive affirmations to the earthworm. keep on keepin' on, earthworm. and send out invitations to all your crawly friends. the good ones, anyway.

i also decided that i wanted to have a small flowerbed all to myself. something about this year makes me want to grow things.

and knit. i'm going to learn how.