Leeks in the Bathtub

Several years ago John, the esteemed handy man living with me here in the middle of nowhere, took an old wreck of a tin bathtub home from a neighbor’s property. Apparently it’d seen many a hard year since being crushed by some sort of contraption, perhaps a heavy piece of farm machinery, and it had lain dormant since, without a bubble bursting out of it. But as luck would have it my hero was able to push it back into shape, more or less. Then we had to decide what to do with it. He’d already taken another old bath with its porcelain on it and made it into a hot tub we’ve rarely used. But this tub project had a more successful ending because I was in charge of where it was going and how it was going to be used.

Normally I do leave him to his own devices, but after seeing the outcome of the other tub, I knew I had to step in. Normally everything he touches turns out to be quite wonderful. The guy shows real genius in his designs that are so very unique. But this tub was my domain even though he found it, fixed it and moved it to its spot after putting a concrete filled gumboot on one leg to support it where the original leg was missing. How brilliant is that?

Anyway, getting back to the ranch here, I needed more space for veggie plantings that our flock wouldn’t be able to dig up or chew on to oblivion. So I carefully finessed the subject of where this item should be placed and that it should be filled with good composted soil for planting, knowing full well that he’d have a slight conniption and say that it’d be too hard to fill that up, it’d take too much soil and bla bla bla. And on in that vein he continued until he agreed.

So yesterday I took the little baby plants I’d just bought the day before, which had already been rather decimated by a hungry hen, and brought all my planting paraphernalia to the area in question. The tub sits quite regally with gorgeous plants surrounding it and forget-me-nots starting to billow around the base. Eventually I was satisfied enough with my choice of Merry Mums that will bloom after I remove the still fattening leeks. Then I’ll put some other things in there behind the flowers or maybe I won’t need to by then if the merry display is grand enough to fill the space. While I was working intently and chuckling to myself that the chickens won’t get these bloomers, the mother hen and her now nine chicks appeared from nowhere and eased their way towards me. I knew what they wanted. A sprinkling of wheat seeds seemed to do the trick for them and soon they departed in search of other enticements around the garden. The chicks are getting so large and their little tummies are distended. I think the boss man is overfeeding them as often as possible, which isn’t a good thing. I’d better patrol his whereabouts more often.

Every few minutes I took a rest on the enormous trunk of our now deceased cabbage tree that used to grace that corner and was pretty magnificent until some strange malady attacked the bark and eventually John had to cut it down. But his bench isn’t exactly sturdy and I had visions of being crushed with his not finished seating arrangement or rolling down the slight rise on the log. Time for a lie down.