Some People Are Just Lucky

Have you ever thought that some people were born with some kind of extra something? In the Fairegarden clan, we have among us one who has always been considered more lucky than the rest. It is offspring Semi. I have written about her before and mention her often in the posts, for she lives less than an hour’s drive from our home and we visit her weekly. Semi has had events happen during her lifetime that we consider pure luck. As a preschooler, her name was drawn at a shoe store in Pennsylvania to win a new bicycle. As a third grader in California she had registered for the door prize at an Hallmark store and won a fully decorated with Hallmark ornaments Christmas tree. When the store called asking for her, I said she was at school and who was calling please. The person on the other end of the line told me about the prize and I went to the elementary school and pulled her out of class to go collect the fully loaded tree. They wrapped it up in bubble plastic, lights, decorations and all and we took it home in the minivan. Probably the luckiest thing was the offer of a soccer scholarship at the college located in the town where we now live. She had not even applied to the college, or gone to a try out there. It seems there was a change of coaches and the former coach had taken the players with him to his new school so this college was left without a team, in May. Semi had gone to a try out at another college in the same area and her name was given to the new incoming soccer coach. She had already made plans to attend another school, with no soccer and no financing offered when this call came in. We drove to the college and she fell in love with the school and the small town atmosphere. We consider this turn of events to be like winning the lottery without even buying a ticket.
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Shown above is her newest garden bed, dubbed the new bed, where she dumped a load of mushroom compost right over top of some sparsely sprigged lawn grass, no round up, no digging, no nothing. Then she mixed up all of her leftover seeds, both purchased and saved, from several years and threw them over the mushroom dirt. This is what she got. Some of us take great pains with our seed starting, spending vast wealth on heat mats and grow light set ups, not to mention ordering special seeds from far away. We have never had the kind of results pictured in the first photo even after all that effort.In this photo is an example of her growing prowess, the Carolina Jessamine in full fragrant bloom. Also in the photo is her messiness, boots laying about among other things.Here is an example of her mother’s method, pots lined up straight as soliders, with special little water containing trays under to provide humidity without excess moisture. Every need of the seedlings has tried to be anticipated.During a very brief warm spell last week Semi and son, LTB, not LBJ, were out sowing seeds in uncleared beds. It began to rain so they ran inside, leaving the tub of seeds out on the ground, as is her way of doing things. The next day she remembered the tub of seeds and brought them in, setting them near the heat vent to dry out. In a day or two she noticed something weird happening in the tub.Can you believe this? Has this ever happened to you? Have you had seeds sprout and grow right through the paper packets? I haven’t. But I don’t leave my seeds out in the rain either. It might be time to think about doing that though.Opening the packet up, there for all to see are the sprouted seeds, cosmos it seems. I have heard of testing germination rates with damp paper towels, but usually the seeds are removed from the packets first. The sprouts have all been planted up in a flat and are growing happily, in seed starting mix, on the sunny windowsill above the heat vent.Semi’s garden is a very natural place, natural here meaning little if no clean up is done from season to season. If there is anything done, it is at her mother’s nagging urging, or mother takes the initiative and felcos in hand and does it herself. Each year baby birds are brought up in the rose Moonlight that grows on the chimney next to the back deck. Last year it was mama mourning dove who selected that choice spot to raise her family. Mockingbirds and robins in previous seasons have done the same.The babies are so sweet and all nearby humans enjoyed watching the hatching, feeding and fledging process. So if the unruly Moonlight is to get a proper pruning, so as not to grab those coming out the back door with thorny tendrils, it must be done before the feathered house hunting forays begin. Valentine’s Day is the traditional rose pruning date in this part of Tennessee. That date will be here before we know it too. The story of Semi’s growing skill, or luck, cannot be complete without showing her proudest accomplishment in the growing area. Here he is running down the steep muddy hill, totally out of control, and loving it. Lucky guy.
Frances