Spring!

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(“Spring” by Birdlegs & Pauline and their Versatility Birds)

The entire city of Minneapolis seems to have spring fever.  The kids and I have had a lot of fun riding our bike around the neighborhood because there are already so many people outside.  70° on St Patrick’s Day?  We love it!

I’m a little worried my favorite spring flowers are going to regret sprouting so early, but I have hope.  That’s the most important thing about gardening:  hope.  This is the year it’s going to be really magnificent, after all.  Weeded, tidy, blooming.  I’m starting the seeds today.

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(“Winter’s Come and Gone” by Gillian Welch)

Growing a garden has been one of the most rewarding experiences I’ve had in my life.  It’s helped me feel more in tune with the natural world, with life and death, and with my own potential.  We all have things we are really good at and I’m sorry but I think I’d be a better gardener than a record store guy or a music blogger.  I’m pretty excited about the seeds that I bought this year and about the plants that have become like old friends to me (I really miss my garden in the winter).

I’m also pretty excited about the plans we’ve been making for Record Store Day.  Fourteen bands are lined up to perform this year, and o many neighborhood businesses have become involved, and so many awesome artists too, that I can’t imagine keeping track of it.  Lucky for us all there’s Laura!

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(“Late Winter, Early Spring” by John Denver)

I think I’m going to start cultivating the tiny bit of land in front of the record shop underneath the awnings.  Don’t expect me to get there this year but I’d like it to be blooming all summer long like the garden around our house.  I think it should have some tulips for early spring and a creeping nasturtium for the middle summer.  I’d like a few familiar ole day lilies, just because they bloom right around the fourth of July. And I’ll add a native blue aster because it will match the color of the building.

And a gnome.  Oh, if we could get away with a gnome, but I imagine he would get stolen.  Maybe there’s something that nobody would want to steal that could become our garden guardian… some sort of monster…

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(“Monster” by the Ericksons)