It was late winter. I was looking forward to warmer weather and itching to build cedar planting boxes to expand the raised bed garden I built last year. My plan was to construct the boxes in March, set them up and fill them with soil in April, and plant vegetables in early May.
In March, I headed off to the lumber warehouse stores only to find that they had few cedar boards in stock and their garden centers had virtually no concrete pavers or base material. It rained for half the month and when the stores finally restocked in April, the price of materials had gone up 120 percent.
I forged on anyway. While it rained outside, I worked inside the garage cutting, sanding and assembling. Although a month behind schedule, I still hoped to finish sometime in May.
But the outside vegetation, which had been peacefully dormant when I began my project, had awakened. My yard had transformed into a rain forest—foot-tall grass, boxwood hedges bulging like unshorn sheep, honeysuckle vines creeping through forsythia branches like body snatcher tentacles, wisteria smothering tree limbs like Devil’s Snare over the Chamber of Secrets … I finally managed to knock down the lawn, whack the weeds, take a few swipes at the snares and tentacles and get back to my project.
People ask if I’m working on my next novel and when it will come out. Like the garden boxes, I’m filled with ideas and intentions, but things rarely go according to plan and my next book is still a work in progress.
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