Gardening and hunting

It’s early spring, and I’ve got my plants started indoors. Zone 5 means you really should start seeds indoors, or risk losing them to the mid-April, end-April and early May snows that rarely fail.

See, here are my happy seedlings.

They only took up one windowsill, yes, they, there are more trays than just the one above. But I had to put some of the seedlings in bigger pots. So now this other kitchen windowsill is taken up to.

These are ready for the garden.

           

Of course, I’m not really gardening. What I’m doing is looking for a job. Only, I love gardening, and my seedlings needed to be put in bigger pots, which reminded me, I need to sort the flowers for my sons planter. And anyhow, the past two days haven’t been really great job hunting days for me. So I pulled out his planter and set it up for him.

Turbo built this ALL by HIMSELF. Hammer, nails, yep, all of it. Painted it too, each color represnets a crop! Turns out Home Depot has a kid workshop on the first Saturday of every month. Everyone knows this, of course, except me. I only sorta knew it, in the way that there were signs out occasionally and on some Saturdays, I noticed kids in little Home Depot aprons with pins stuck to their chests like medals wandering around. But I mostly ignored it, until a friend of my son’s ran up to him and showed him the planter he made.

So now my son has a Home Depot apron with his very first pin: the planter pin, and I have instructions to make sure I take him to Home Depot every first Saturday of every first month.

The liner in the planter is coconut liner cut to fit. I never knew planters were often lined with coconut hair.

So of course, I’m looking for a job, but first I had to garden. Then I had to take pictures so I could share them.  Then I had to make sure everything was ready for my boy to plant his flower seeds tonight.

He already has some flower seedlings and eggplant seedlings. But for his planter he wants flowers. 

Also, he and I are  the only ones who’ll eat the eggplant he’s growing. No one else will touch the stuff.

And now I’ll commence job hunting. I’m not sure if you can accurately call it ‘hunting’ however. It resembles more of a casino visit. If you hang around long enough, and wander around enough of the games, and play enough of them, then eventually, you’ll win something.

But no one ever admits that. Everyone talks about targeting your search or networking (yes, I realize that's an e-how article, that's the thing, the only people who know how to network don't actually need to network... ah, cruel irony) or guerilla hunting (It has a certain appeal, the same kind of appeal that say, alligator wrestling has...). But really, it’s doing a bit of everything, tossing some salt over your shoulder and considering that maybe a career in retail isn't all that bad... until you land somewhere.

And since, my friends tell me, I am SO MUCH MORE than just a job, I am doing my best to maintain all the other parts of my life that while I enjoy, don’t actually provide income. Vegetables and herbs, perhaps, but not actual income.

Speaking of vegetables, here’s my garden bed:

And look, radishes!  And a pea!

And daisies (I think)!

And my friend’s garlic. Really, that seems to me an excessive amount of garlic. Makes me wish I’d thought to put garlic in the ground last year.  

And so that's how my job hunt is going. 

Some peas and radishes sprouting, a bit of luck, some fertilizer, a targeted cover letter and resume, and hopefully, in May, I can have a yummy salad with a side of salary.