When one finds out that their cancer has returned and this time it's terminal, there's a whole lot of time to think. Now, there are benefits to this, I suppose, time to plan, time to change, time to make amends if that's what's called for. But given the choice, most people would not want to know when they're going to die. There was a study done, I forget the numbers, but it seems that most people understand how crazy-making it can be, living on death row, and not having a due date.

When we learned that the cancer was terminal, back in November of 2007, we were sad a lot, me, I cried all the time. Greg's not a crier, but he started drinking more to offset the moisture I was losing in tears. But, we knew we had some time, that this wasn't imminent, so we jumped into projects. I had always wanted a tractor, and one day in March '08, while I was sitting and (probably) crying, I thought, I have a retirement fund that I'm not going to be able to spend on retirement. I'm going to buy a tractor. So, within a week or so, we were the proud owners of a brand new red (RED!) Massey-Ferguson with front end loader and backhoe. Now we're talking! And last summer we built a path through the woods, a loop all the way around, so the whole woods are accessible to the grandkids, as long as they watch out for poison ivey.

And then, one day I started pulling out the compacted clay from the low spot in the back where I always got the lawn mower stuck. It just peeled off in layers. It was easy to see what had happened, once I started disassembling it. The contractor that dug the basement just put the clay from the hole back there and spread it out, with no place for the water to run to. And since it's clay, it won't perk through, it just stays wet until it dries and cracks. I used the front bucket and peeled off layer after layer until I created quite a depression in the ground, and quite a "mountain" to the side of it. There seemed to be much more clay coming out of the hole than the size of the home would indicate, so I started making a pile near the driveway for a present for Nathan. He needed fill dirt. At this point it was obvious that here was going to be a pond, because I've dug a hole that water runs into and doesn't run out of.

So, lightbulb in the head! About fifty feet from this low spot that's filled with stinky, sticky clay and anaerobic decay, is the pipe that we had put in to drain the basement and goes deep underground down to a ravine that leads to the river. But there's a stand pipe that's accessible. I didn't know how to use the backhoe yet, but I figured it out, on possibly the most difficult part of the dig - adjoining this pipe, curving back and away from it, between trees on both sides, keeping an even slope, and having to jump down off the tractor seat with each scoop because the mud was so sticky that it had to be pulled out with a shovel.

Needless to say, working like this, I didn't get so very far, and Greg got home from work. Time for me to put on my most adorable sheepish grin and tell him "the plan I had thunk up". So in fifteen minutes or so he was out, shovel in hand, and we set up the transit and when I dug really too deep he shoveled the mud back in. We got to where the pond was going to be, and we put in the vertical pipe that would be the overflow drain that would set the depth of the water, and we set perforated drain pipe wrapped in landscape cloth, and bedded in gravel, back to the standpipe for the basement drain. That was part one.

When I started writing this today it wasn't to talk about building the pond, it was to talk about fall garden chores. Because it's September 2, and if you've let them, the gardens have gotten really scraggly. Over the weekend I was feeling a mite poorly, Saturday, I guess it was, and I looked out from this great vantage point and there was Greg, looking intent, with MY garden clippers. I have a bit of a "watch out - Mama's got scissors" reputation but Greg had that same slightly fanatical look. He was cleaning up the garden beds, something that always is burdonsome and has been known to be totally left undone in some years. He cut down the peonies, the bleeding heart, the columbine (though I believe they have already dropped seeds), he cut back the monarda and the daisies. He deadheaded the pots on the back porch and the phlox and the black-eyed susans. He pulled weeds. He's made digging thistles his personal mission this year and has made more progress than I ever did.

So when I started to write today I was going to say that I've had plenty of time to worry about things that might be left undone, and one of my biggest worries was the garden maintenance. But Greg has taken charge of the gardens, and that has been a huge gift to me. Thirty-five years ago you wouldn't have guessed that this would be a man who would come to appreciate gardens so well. You just never know, do you?