Gardening is therapeutic. It is also good exercise. I guess, actually, a lot of things meet those particular criteria. For instance, in our younger days, my husband and I kept about eight horses. We bedded their stalls with sawdust, and cleaned their stalls every day. That resulted in a rather large manure pile by the end of the year. Neither of us minded cleaning those stalls. There is just something about working in a warm horse barn on a cold winter night with the smell of fresh hay and the horses nickering. It’s very relaxing — even though you are working. It’s Therapeutic.

At the same time I kept a very sizable vegetable garden. Each fall after the vegetables were done, we would cover the whole area with the contents of the manure pile, then plow it under. Other vegetable gardening neighbors warned me that my vegetables would be ruined by the sawdust, but each year, I had huge, beautiful vegetables.

Now I know the basis for the worry about sawdust is a complicated scientific explanation called "Nitrogen Tie-up". Without having any real knowledge of what I was doing, my garden was unharmed because that sawdust was well composted before any vegetable seeds got near it.

The lesson from that story is - never dump fresh sawdust on your plants, but old, composted sawdust is actually an excellent amendment.

I really can’t explain why I can spend hours weeding in the garden, and totally en-joy it. I guess I would have to say, it's my passion. It feeds my soul. Give me a vacuum cleaner and tell me to clean the house for three hours and I’m exhausted!

There is a wonderful feeling of fulfillment in planting, nurturing, and grooming a garden, then reaping the harvest of its beauty. Or, if you are a vegetable gardener, enjoying a meal consisting of food which you grew with your own hands.

I love to take a section of my yard that is nice, but not sensational, and study it to determine how to make it better. I suppose creating a living and growing work of art gives me the same feeling an artist has as he puts brush to canvas and creates a beautiful picture. Sometimes I look at certain plant combinations, and can barely believe the beauty of it all. Then I run and get my camera so that at the end of the growing season I can look back over my pictures and enjoy the beauty once again. We all know who created that beauty. It’s no credit to me. I am just the caretaker.

On many hot, summer afternoons when the sun is lighting up the garden, my husband and I sit in the shade on the patio sipping iced tea. We watch the butterflies enjoying that hot sun, and nectaring on their favorite flowers. We watch the hummingbirds flit from blossom to blossom never staying at any one flower for barely more than a brief second. We see the busy birds diligently bringing nesting materials to the birdhouses, or, later, bringing food to their babies. It’s so much better than watching TV!

I’ve learned so much just from observing nature unfold in my garden. I’ve watched caterpillars turn into butterflies, seen male butterflies fly upside down trying to court a nonchalant female, I’ve nudged a sleeping bumble bee awake as it slept on a flower. I’ve watched a fat little bee crawling on its tummy with its legs dragging behind it, trying to reach the nectar way up inside a flower.

In March, after the catkins on the pussy willow turn yellow with pollen, I love to watch the birds peck wildly into the catkin trying to get the tiny insect that is after the nectar that the catkin holds. Usually, they go at it so violently, they knock the catkin right off its branch onto the patio. In the fall, small birds will land on the tall ornamental grass seed heads and begin pecking at the seed. The grass will bend toward the ground, then come back up with the bird still hanging on and eating for the entire ride. I call it a bird’s amusement park ride. Very entertaining!

I realize that a lot of people don’t share my gardening enthusiasm. In fact, most of my family members think I am slightly crazy for spending so much time out there. But, I think that if you are still reading this, you are with me. You get it! Passion is a hard word to explain. My front yard is full of plants. I like to watch people walk by. The majority just pass by and never turn their head, but every now and then, a person will stop and look for a while. Then I know. I’ve found another kindred spirit!