Vast incompetence or what?

I have been working and working to get my garden into shape. Every spring I vow that this will be the year that I really keep the garden weeded and in good shape. And the year that I'll dig it under come October so that it'll be ready for spring planting. The fact that I have to work my buns off to get it done in the spring is evidence of the fact that I never keep those vows.

There are parts of the garden that are in pretty good shape, soil-wise and other parts that aren't. I've already dug and planted the parts that are in good shape and have been working all morning on the rest of it.

I am very tired.

My Mantis tiller is my best gardening friend. Friend Husband (my best friend overall) bought it for me a few seasons ago when I said that I was not going to continue gardening if I didn't get some kind of motorized item to help me with turning over the dirt every year. Friend Husband loves loves loves fresh tomatoes, especially those little grape ones. He also love loves loves me and knows how much I enjoy gardening, except for minor frustrations like having to spend 6 weeks digging it up to get ready for spring.

So he found me a Mantis tiller and I've been in love with it ever since. It occurred to me as I walked out of the garage with it today that I haven't given it a name as I have our other machines around the house. One car is "Estrella" and the other is the "Big Black Van" (a play on the Wiggles' Big Red Car). I decided this morning, before I even got to the garden enclosure, that my tiller's name was Hun. As in Attiller the Hun. Heh. Can you tell how tired I am by the lameness of that joke?

So what was I getting at? Oh, I was wondering if I was incompetent because it takes me so very long to get the work done (although it no longer takes me 6 weeks) or what is going on. Part of what's going on, of course, is the twins, homeschooling, rain, life, etc. Part of it is that time slows down when I get into the garden. I cannot get anything done quickly there. Every action is like a meditation. I had to edge along my brick pathways and dig out the clay there by hand to add to the pile of dirt that Hun would process and it took a very long time. I enjoyed it but niggling in the back of my head was the knowledge that I'd pay for it in some other way, like the girls not working diligently or the twins getting into a fight or dinner being late. I haven't even started on my inside chores for the day and I'll probably be too tired to do them when I finally come in. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't make a good farm wife.

Friend Gina has recently been trying some new things in order to get ready for the next part of her life and sometimes I'm very jealous. There are times in every day that the noise, the dirt, the fighting, and my own sense of incompetence threaten to swamp my craft. I dream of doing something else, anything else. But when I force myself to come up with something else that's concrete and achievable, I am unable to. And I don't want to miss these precious days with my children, even when they drive me around the bend. I don't want someone else raising my children. I just want things to go easily for a change.

That's about as vague as wanting to do "something else". And about as achievable.

Musings from a tired and dirty woman who is about to go out and play in her big dirt hole.