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Now, as I write this, it's mid April '23, spring. As much as I love to write, and I don't just write depressing poetry, I love to garden. Every year I plant a vegetable garden. I plant tomatoes, cukes, summer and winter squashes, corn ( not sweet but the kind where I can make homemade tortillas) I even have perennial types like strawberries and asparagus. My family loves the garden too. I do most of the hard work and they reap the benefits, I wouldn't have it any other way. As a father, I love to supply fresh, healthy, pesticide free food to my family and I don't mind hearing them brag about how they just went into their garden and picked fresh peas off the vine.

Spring is a time of rebirth, renewal and new chances. I have a sign on my garden gate that reads, "to plant a garden is to believe in the future." And I guess I must. All year long I get depressed, stressed and fed up with everything, quite consistently it seems. I get so down that I do you know how I can get through another day. Then, before I realize it, a whole week or month has gone by and I'm wondering where the time went. And then the warm weather comes around and I'm getting out my little planter cups, seeds and soil, and find myself pre planting a few weeks before my areas last frost date. All in anticipation of the future time when I can get them all planted in my big old annual garden.

It's a strange thing. I tell myself that I don't have a future or its never going to get better or whatever, but then I find myself fighting, clawing and generally working towards the very thing I say won't happen. And I find myself pleasantly surprised when it does. What I'm saying is that you should always plant a garden, or sow some kind of seed (take a college course, just one at a time maybe) clear away the weeds and in the fall you may find yourself a bountiful harvest.