So clearly having 2 chitlins has slowed mon field notes. It’s nice to be able to look back and see that the babies have made a softer and fuzzier me. And it’s not just my new baby fat and hairy legs. Long before they were twinkles in a petri dish, I had dreams of chubby little legs running through the meadow by our house. The details of not having an actual meadow fluttered way above my head. “Don’t worry sweetheart of a new hubbie, I’m a gardener- we’ll just make a meadow.”
Step 1- wait for the long abandoned and mostly waterlogged house next door to come out of trust.
Step 2- Bless it’s 1980’s soul and then quickly take it out of it’s misery.
Step 3- call friends at Native American Seed
Step 4- dazzle your new neighbors with tractors
Step 5- Voila- your new meadow.
Step 6-
Any of my fellow gardeners feeling a little fib in my pictograph? Think it went something a little more like this….
Step 1- agonize. fret. wring hands. argue about the property next door. Know that any new buyer will need 3 stories to get a city view- and an excellent view of our back garden and nekkid swimming.
Step 2- Secure next door property- knock it down and unleash a plague of rats on the entire neighborhood. starting with your own house.
Step 3- wait until the soil is perfect temperature, finally spread the seed
Install temporary irrigation, watch the birds convene daily to eat the grass seeds and then suffer 2 monster turd floaters that wash the majority of all the seed down the softly sculpted hill.
Step 4- re-sod with heinous squares of buffalo turf that take eons to establish
Step 5- finally get some grass traction- contemplate reverting to your father’s way of killing fire ants via pouring gasoline down the mound and lighting on fire. take refuge in Aztec Pest Control’s kinder and gentler way.
Step 6- crouch low when the city code inspector drives by frequently- has someone called me in for not cutting my lawn? Is there a code against having long grass? shouldn’t I know this somehow?
Step 7- Finally, get some luck, pull up the temporary irrigation after 2 seasons and get la niña!
I mean, was it worth it? Yes yes yes. I’m quite obsessed with it- I love it in the winter when it’s all gold and blowing. In the spring when it’s 5 bluebonnets and thousands of primroses bloom (the majority of the primroses at the bottom of the hill- ahem). Slowly, the other wildflowers are coming in- wine cups and other friends are self-sowing.
The second baby comes and what…is it hormonal….as we awaited Leon’s birth- in some weird nesting thing last fall I went out and dug in 100’s of flower seeds into the upper meadow. I’m telling you now that about 4 of them bloomed this spring.
So in a fit of maternal crafting this fall – Willie and I decided to make a butterfly garden in the upper meadow- with live plants. No more of this seed shit. And it isn’t pretty when the hormones have access to a planting crew, coincide with the native plant sale at the wildflower center & a need for some “alone time” in the nurseries.
I purchased oh about 150 4” plants. Willie and I dotted them all over the upper meadow & called my long suffering irrigation guy.
They came through my beautiful meadow and trenched to run temporary drip to the butterfly plants.
Is it worth it? Before we could even get the plants in the ground we had loads of butterflies. And watching the babies eyes light up is all that I had dreamed and more. Trust me hubbie- we’ll just “make a meadow. It’s what we do.”
