A Long Time Gardening

Left undisturbed over many years, crocus will multiply and set seed. They are not always left undisturbed though. Crocus are edible. Varmints will eat them. Maybe they are not a favorite or their small size is an advantage. In general they are mostly left alone.

This is my last personal garden and for the next thirty years or so I will be able to observe how well crocus manage to live long and prosper as long as they can avoid being eaten.

Yes it could be another thirty, maybe even forty years in this garden.

Because there was a more than decent chance I might not have health insurance next year and because I am of a certain age where things really should be poked and prodded, I finally went to see a doctor to find out if I would live long enough to get Medicare.

There was no reason for me to visit a doctor before. I was one of those healthy people in the socialist insurance pool helping pay for the sick. It just seemed prudent under current reality to make sure I wouldn't be sick anytime soon.

As I have long suspected, I lean towards Bulbarella's longevity biochemistry. I am quite healthy for a man of a certain age with no real problems. My blood pressure is a bit elevated, but not in the you need to take drugs range. It has been the same amount of elevated for a decade.

The prescription: take baby aspirin, vitamin C, reduce my sugar intake - Lord help me - and eat more fruits, vegetables and dairy. The blood pressure will be watched over time.

The second attempt at Winter Aconite has produced the first flowers. I hope more pop up. This is supposed to be a thuggish plant when happy. I sure hope so. It is planted in the Great Lawn with crocus and grape hyacinth.

Can you imagine my spring time lawn in twenty years!

Next I head to the dermatologist (Florida, Maui, blond, long time gardener) and my first ever colonoscopy is scheduled for next month. If all goes well there and I don't get hit by a log truck, my decrepitude could last for decades. Oh joy.

Still, it couldn't hurt to plant more spring bulbs in the Great Lawn and speed things up.

It's possible, but no guarantee, I could live long enough to see 'Arnold' reach fifteen feet. That would be something.

It's also possible I could live long enough to see the end of the world as we know it. Will I be fine? Plans are in the works to plant a number of perennial fruit crops and expand the vegetable production area. I bet I could find out how to make aspirin from willow bark. Dairy is close by.

Someone will have to play the part of the old man on the mountaintop that remembers the world the way it was before. I suppose I could do that for a while. The Roadside Possum Stand of Mountain Curios and Tonics will have a small front porch. A big bell will be used to ring for service and call the old farts out of the gardens. Customers can wait in nice rocking chairs.

We can sit a spell and talk story. I just have to watch out for log trucks.