Stupid things we’ve all done

OK, fine.  Stupid things only I would dream of doing.  Have you ever pondered a current or recently taken avenue in life and decided, upon reflection, you should have turned left rather than right?  Or better yet, exited the vehicle all together and ridden your bicycle?  And maybe, just maybe, your wrong turn becomes another and then another.  No, this post isn’t going to turn into an episode of Lost or Guiding Light, but sometimes I can’t believe the dumb things I do.

Exhibit A:

Surely the most damning of the evidence, I put my house up for sale on the same day I hosted a benefit garden tour for the botanical garden this summer. 

The Last Frontier Gardener was merely trying to hit her target market for a home sale but ended up having to turn people away at the door that wanted to walk through.  To be fair, my sign did say “By appointment only.”  Did that stop them?  Said my sister in law apologetically at the door, “Uh, she’s kinda busy right now in the garden.  Sorry.  But give her a call later.”  I can’t blame them.  If you did a drive-by of a home for sale and saw scads of people flocking towards it (for the garden tour) you might be forgiven for mistaking it for the biggest Open House of all time.  Dumb.

I’m not even going to mention the difficulty of getting the house and garden into shape by the same day.  I will say a few primal screams and silent inner screams were involved.  That and a lot of Windex.

Exhibit B:

Not entering the garden for a month and expecting to harvest vegetables that aren’t supporting three generations of pests or have gone to seed.

After above mentioned tour, I abandoned the garden (was it resentment?) for a month.  Be merciful, readers, it was raining (see above pic).  Every day.  In fact, we have had a record breaking streak of rainy days this summer, so I hope to be forgiven for not being thrilled about the outdoors for the month of August.

It was just as bad as you’d expect.  Everything was riddled in holes and slug poo.  My celery had turned into a high rise slug tenement.  It was rather unsavory washing so many slimy bodies off and having to scrub the celery so hard to get all slug digestion remnants off for dinner.  Stew anyone?  I’ve abandoned the remaining two celery plants to their fate.  The beans are goners and the cabbages are barely salvageable.

Exhibit C:

I agreed to let a photographer/horticulturist come out to the garden for some shots this month for a future presentation on fall interest, (an obscure, if not dubious subject in the minds of many Alaskan gardeners).  You think I would be able to plan ahead by this time in my life.  Nope.  About thirty minutes before she came, a whirlwind of raking, weeding, pruning, and snarling in the back yard.  I hope she didn’t notice that giant dandelion in the front yard.  Ho hum. 

Did I mention the slugs have had free reign the last month?  The Hosta, Ligularia, and veggies are Swiss cheese.  The only thing looking particularly good is the aforementioned dandelion.  The weather has transitioned from rainy to threat of snowy.  Apathy has me in a chokehold.  And I still have to clean the house for a prospective buyer tonight.  Which means I’d better think about getting that Windex out again.   Sheesh.

Done anything stupid?