(Foil at bottom to thwart slugs.)

The ordinary weekly chore of dragging the hose around the yard, pointing it towards a tree, setting a timer, BRAAAAAP then the next then the next then the next, repeat, while taking the time to closely see the changes: some week by week, some from even just this morning when my tomato was an inch shorter and the netting tent was tall enough.

This is why I haven’t put in an automatic system. There’s calibrating to varied sizes while knowing the sizes will change but also I seem to want it to make me have to go out and spend one-on-one time with the outdoors in the evening, when I finally can in the day.

Everything’s growing. Everything’s reaching up and out to what each plant or tree was meant to be. The best of the sun to them all.

These are the moments when I think having something living to watch and nurture and see responding to care, even a seedling in a paper cup, is as necessary to the soul as the air that we breathe.