The Gentleness Of Life In A Village.

Gardening and village life go hand in hand.

Moving to the scenic rural countryside of Burgenland has brought us the pleasure of having a big garden. Oh, to be honest, there are times when it seems far from a pleasure. Grass just grows overnight, weeds delight in re-entering the stage, fences need to be mended and even our wall could use a dab of paint...

With our village being so small, each garden counts in giving the village a romantic, well kept and attractive canvas to shine on. You know, as soon as the spring birds dock at their summer destination, all the gardeners are out and about removing the winter malaise from their gardens.

All those summer tourists ( I do mean birds, although we have plenty of real tourists ) perching on the tree branches, telephone cables and rooftops somehow expect to have a nice, neat and colourful stage. Early each morning, I can hear them tweeting to each other. For all I know, they are commenting on the lack of colour in our garden. Green can only go so far before it becomes boring !

Partly to oblige my little tourists yet also for the satisfaction of seeing a boisterous flower grow into adulthood and cast a magical spell over the garden, I have got stuck in. Our garden also features many fruit trees which delight in attracting gangs of bees ! Their buzzing tends to enrich the background beat of the avian choir. A happy symbiosis indeed.

Yesterday I cleared a little garden against the front wall of our house. Ah, digging up soil can bring forth a surprise or two. Snakes ( alive or dead ) and bones. These were little enough to have most likely belonged to a feline of sorts. Never mind the little parcels of poo that our cat Tigger has been leaving there !

Pottering about in a garden makes us lose track of time. What feels to us like an hour can turn out to be three hours. Gardening is one of those instances where we are in the moment.

A time for recharging our batteries, shutting out the " noise " of life and just digging in the sand / earth / dirt the same way we did as children in our sandpits. Nails that have a touch of " gardener " about them should be held up with pride !

Biggi

Work in progress !