For the past several years I have opened a Christmas Club savings account and saved every week so we could take a vacation in December and get away from the snow for a week.  This year we have a new addition to our family – Emily the scratch and sniff dog.  She is a rescue dog and spent almost all of her five years in a shelter.  She is still very afraid of everything but she loves me a lot and puts up with her “Da”.

When I go away from the house and leave Emmie behind she just goes to bed and sleeps.  Even if the hubster calls her for a treat, she might come get it or not.  It will just take time.

And so, I decided I could not go on a vacation this year because of the dog.  I couldn’t be that mean to her to be away for a week.  I thought about the money I had saved and asked the hubster if I could have my dream herb garden built.  He said, “You saved it.  You spend it.”  This is what I wanted to spend it on.

I contacted our local landscaping company and sent them a photo of my ideal garden and they sent me a quote.  I accepted and Jim told me they wouldn’t get to it until October at the very least.  That was okay because I still had herbs to dig up and bricks to move.  I also had a volunteer tomato plant and two volunteer cherry tomato plants that were still producing.

I cleaned up the herb garden and brought in all the plants to save for next spring.  I left the tomatoes grow and covered them when the weather got chilly.  A couple of weeks went by. 

I got anxious and called the landscaper to see when they were coming.  He told me the end of the week as they had other jobs to get done while the weather was still fairly warm.

I pulled the tomato plants and brought all the tomatoes inside to ripen.  The landscaper didn’t make it at the end of that week, nor the next week or that next week.  I emailed him and asked when and he told me Thursday at 10:00.  Yessireee!

I emptied the last bag of alpaca manure that I had saved for the herb garden.  I spread it all out.  I checked the compost bin and that stuff was ready to go in too.

I walked the floor all morning on Thursday. I started a project and got distracted but then I heard a door slam outside.  I got to the door before he rang the bell.  I was like a little girl wringing my hands and smiling until it hurt, I was so excited.

We walked out to the garden and he introduced me to Emmett, the gentleman who would be building my garden.  He didn’t introduce his assistant who I assumed could not speak English as they spoke mostly in Spanish. They drew the circle and asked if I wanted it bigger.  Yes, I wanted it at least a foot bigger.  I wanted to include the entire section that was already dug out.

He instructed the workers to make it a foot larger.  He took off to supervise other jobs that were going on.  I told Emmett to carry on and went inside to work on my project.

Inside I was worrying that Jim (the landscaper boss) had not told Emmett to add the compost to the garden.  They had brought black dirt.  I ran out and explained to Emmett that I wanted the contents of the composter to go into the garden.  We opened the composter and he said he understood.

I kept sneaking out to the garage and watching from the window.  I even took a couple of pictures.

I know I worked on my project and was smiling ear to ear (SETE) the entire time.  I simply could not believe this was happening.  I had been interviewed by the newspaper last summer in my herb garden and I was sort of embarrassed by it.  Now I would be so very proud of my herb garden.

I went out after they had left and came back from lunch.  He pointed to the garden and said I had some really good dirt in there for my garden.  With all the compost and alpaca poo, I knew I did.  We discussed the bricks and I told him I wanted them to meet and not have any space between them on the “X” path.  “No problem,” he said and they changed them.  Later he rang my doorbell and asked if I had something I wanted to go in the center.  I went and got my, what I call an unopened lotus.  I’m not really sure what it is but that is what I call it.

He sat it in the center of the path and it did not meet.  I asked if they could make it meet and Emmett told me they would be cutting the blocks to make it fit.  They had this big ass chain saw sitting on the ground.

I went back to work on my project and kept sneaking out to see how they were progressing.  Later, it seemed awfully quiet out there.  I went out and they had finished and left without saying a word.  I had planned on giving each of them a $20.00 tip but they had just left.

What do you think?  Isn’t it amazing?  I simply cannot wait to put plants in the garden next spring.  It is missing something, you say.  How about this?

There, now it is perfect.

Peace be with you.