Planting for Mom

All week I've been thinking about what I could do to celebrate my late Mom's birthday. She would have turned 69 today. And then it came to me: I decided to plant my fall bulbs with my daughter on Saturday. We had experienced a quick shift in the weather the two days before--about 35 degrees colder to be exact, accompanied by mountain snow and valley rain. So when the early afternoon skies looked stable, but cool, I called her out to help. We pushed aside the bark, seedum ground cover, and even a first few fall leaves to find the popsicle sticks that I'd used to mark the spots in May where I wanted to fill in some spots with pink and white daffodils, persian blue alliums, and vanilla cream tulips. There's something about tucking a dormant bulb deep into the ground that seems to nicely compliment our other autumnal activities and preparations for winter. I was probably nine or ten when Mom showed me how to drop them in on top of a spoonful of bone meal. Just as she did then, I'm sure I reaped more from the experience this weekend than my 14-year old, who seemed anxious to head back inside to sit in front of the fire. I can't wait to see them bloom next spring, and many more after that. Mom would be so pleased.