the beauty of wood

so i've been spending time every day for the last week watering matt and lisa's plants. it is a joy to me to water plants. generally i have gone to their place around 7:15am right after i have dropped amanda off at the train station. i have coffee, cigarettes, and a hose (2). my pants move to the gardening position: one fold which brings the hem of my cuf up to my knee which allows the water, should it hit me, to bounce onto my naked ankle. never wear socks while watering. i will dock you points for that. other things i will dock you points for:

flicking your cigarette ash at any length less than a quater inch, because you should be watching the plants damnit, not your cigarette.

splashing dirt/mud on ANYTHING. watering can be accomplished without dirt movement

watering in direct, mid-day sun. how would you like it if i covered your leaves in large sun-magnifying drops of water? i didn't think so

spending less than half an hour watering. (not applicable to small in-door assortment of house plants)

the thing is, i have been watering plants on a professional, and volunteer basis since the eighties. i started out watering my parents garden, in the nude (save for rubber boots), when i was two. this is why they continued to feed me. i earned my keep. as i grew i continued to water. the grass. the flowers. the sandbox (which i flooded to float my toy boats in). i was always with the hose. i love me some hose.

later, working for the city of cottage grove, i drew the coveted early morning watering duty. i would arrive at work before dawn, and fill the tank in the bed of my assigned truck with two hundred gallons of water, and a gallon of miracle grow too. my water was as beautifully blue as the mediterainian, or the adriatic. (the color is, in fact, nearly identical to the representation in the image!) i would drive the truck, orange light rotating, down the wrong side of the street, hence the early hours. i used a wand which i held out the window of the truck to water the flower beds and half whisky barrels of flowers that lined main street. i also watered all the trees reaching up through the sidewalk. i loved it. i got to water plants while drinking coffee. listening to the radio. driving, light blinky blinky, against traffic. i also got to leave work three hours earlier than everyone else because i was there so early. summer afternoons were mine.

i have had notions of having a tree farm later on in life. i dated a girl in high school who's father owned a large tree farm. doug fir, nobles, some pulp trees. their house, gently on a hill side, above a standing army of greentrees. she always smelled so good. i told her it must have been the trees. i also vaugely remember using puns that involved the words 'sappy', 'needles' and taking 'a bough'. i've docked myself points. i might be able to earn them back though if i do have a tree farm someday. if not, i plan on planting as many as i can wherever i end up.