Life's a ditch

My father used to joke about how sometimes things go from the ridiculous to the sublime. I think I know what he meant -- such as that day a year ago when I was putting together some raised bed garden boxes in a snow flurry in a biting March wind. It was so absurd I had to laugh -- and it's doggone hard to laugh when your fingers can't even hold the long screw I was trying to bore through frozen wood.

This year it's the standing water in the garden, which just keeps on coming out of every once-dry seep, intermittent spring and bog spot on the hillside above us.  Trying to build the new garden shed in ankle-deep mud has been a pain in the neck and a nuisance in the feet.  The new fence posts stand in water, and it looks like it could be weeks before I can tamp down earth around them and start stringing up the new field fence.

So the last couple of days I've been digging little ditches, trying to lure the water away from the garden and into the tall grass that seems to jump up a couple of inches every day -- and laughing about the utter absurdity of trying to dry out a garden whose main problem too often is not enough rain.

These ditches are shallow little muddy drains, but they working. At least they've got moving water in them, all leading away from the garden.  But so far there's no sign of any drying out in the areas where we hope to plant a few rows. There seems to be plenty of water yet to seep out of the hillside -- and the weather forecast is for more rain.  My weather gauge says we had another two inches since Saturday, and there's little sign of a dry spell ahead.  Well, as least we won't be whining about a drought for awhile.