But wait! It's a gardening post!

The dog found that harmless little garden helper snake during our recent outdoor project weekend. Thank goodness for "zoom" on the camera. Regardless of its reputation as a soil helper and pest deterrent, Grace and I stayed far, far away. Everyone else thought it was cute. (I'd like to redefine cute for certain members of our family.)

I think it's more than a little ironic that Laura will literally and unashamedly roll in chocolate and will happily but surreptitiously eat cat food, but has a conniption over a little garden dirt on her hands. She gets only one of those traits from her mother.

And now we get to the gardening part! (Those are not sea creatures but rather small hairy representatives of being truly rooted at this home. In fact, we've now lived here nearly four years... a record in our oft-moving marriage. Planting of a long-term crop is significant, I tell you. And also? When a parenthetical statement gets this long it probably should be another post.)

Mr. Suite dug two 12-inch-deep trenches for my new asparagus crowns. The dog just supervised. I explained to him more than 10 years ago that the only unforgivable dog sin is digging in the garden. He seems to understand.

After the trenches were prepared, Madeleine carefully mounded dirt at 15-inch intervals and lovingly placed the roots over the mounds, staking each mound as she went. For two weeks I've been sifting soil onto the new growth. In three years we'll eat homegrown asparagus. I'm pretty sure there's a lesson in delayed gratification here. (Um, and at the risk of getting all philosophical on you, there might be a lesson in the totally foreign concept that we won't move in a seven-year span. Yikes.)

So we started the garden with some cabbage, a few rows of peas, a dozen rainbow chard and a half-dozen varieties of lettuce. My role is greatly reduced (to that of supervision) by virtue of being in the magical third trimester. See how that's working for me? It's better than last year's unending physical labor. So far. In a month and a half or so I guess I'll make up lost "ground" with another kind of labor.