By Dan Bodine
You know how most Mays are: Temperatures are cool, and days just seem to go on forever! Well, Noemi and I had so many yard projects going this Spring we forgot about plants altogether.
And adding bed space for ’em was one of the projects! Duh…Reckon, Ol’ Bo, that’s why your wife suggested going to a plant nursery?! Looking for Spring discounts on plants?
So…Well, we wandered into the garden section Monday morning at nearby Lowe’s — just to see what they might have, ‘ya know — and lo-‘n-behold, looky here!
Noemi first spotted them! Discount plants! Tall tray carriers on wheels, all shoved back to the back section and filled to the brim with … Rejects!
Or rather, plants that’d been taken off the showcase tables for lack of sales or showing stress factors, and thus wheeled back to the back area to be sold at discount prices. 1/2 price or more! Depending on shape they were in.
Walking closer, looking at each other now, there was no reason to say anything. Instant communication! Yeah, new beds had been made in our garden — but no one ever bought any plants for ’em! Uh…
Deliverance, you could say! This moment was.
No, too Trumpian!
Redeemed, maybe our mortal souls were — at Lowe’s discounts?!
Yeah, fits better.
But for a second or two, still I hesitated.
I was gripped with another, even darker thought — e.g.,
This is the next to last day of May! Wednesday is June! We’re in Far West Texas. In desert heat!
And JUNE IS THE HOTTEST MONTH!!!
Can these plants possibly survive without growing new roots? Immediately?
Noemi has the most beautiful brown eyes in the world, I’ve long argued. Looking at her at that moment, they were sparkling. Just bursts of different hues of light!
Dare I croak a few chords of Bing Crosby’s old “Don’t Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes, Don’t Let the Moon Break Your Heart” to her?
Nope!
Wouldn’t matter, anyway! She’d picked two plants off the shelves, already! For late spring plantings!
Thus, join in the fluttering fun, Bodeen! Git ‘ur 2 cents in!
We got some good ones, yes, finally! In all, well over a hundred dollars of discounted half-or-less bedding or basket plants! Including some planting soil, too, of course!
And you know what I did Tuesday??! Set out plants! Yep, all of ’em!
And yesterday, June 1? First day of over 100 degrees!?
Jethro, you dare say?!!!
Well…Uhh… Much of the day I was intermittently keeping this fine mist on ’em, from a spray hose, of course!
Just in case they got it in their heads that somebody would set out new bedding plants in desert weather like this and not know anything about what the hell he was a-doin’!
Yessiree, just whistling Dixie, some of us are in Life! While fryin’ outside! Waitin’ on the sun to go yonder horizon!
But, too, savin’ Los Plantos!
Hopefully!
Hee, hee!
— 30 —
Bodeen’s we are, till our dying day.
Hee, hee! Bless ‘ur heart, Sis! Yes, it takes one to know one! Praise the Lord and pass the whiskey!