Strangely Quiet, Wet and Still

It is a rain day -- something like I used to feel when a rare West Texas snow storm forced the cancellation of school.  It always came with mixed emotions:  a free "vacation" day, which was great and almost like an extra helping of dessert, but because typically too cold and messy to do anything outdoors, rapidly descending into boredom.  Today, while there is no likelihood of boredom, there are nonetheless similarly mixed emotions.  My confused and angry body is appreciative of the rest.  And everything struggling to eke out a growth spurt is thirsty for the rain.  But I am not finished with the site work and was hoping to get the digging completed today. 

I was almost there. 

Yesterday I scooped and re-tilled all the trenches on the newer, eastern half of the garden.  It still needs one more round.  A trump card arrived, however, the day before in the form of 50 asparagus crowns that rather quickly need to get under ground.  That portion -- near but outside the basic square -- had not yet even been started.  I had ordered the crowns in December and after following up a week ago learned that they were to be shipped this week.  At that point I still hadn't settled on a location for their bedding, nor read up on how they should be planted.  With other work pressing in on the schedule, I mentally set that learning and digging curve aside in favor of the task at hand. 

Until the box arrived on Wednesday afternoon; a box containing two bundles of roots -- Purple Passion and Jersey Supreme, 25 of each -- with a sheet of instructions calling for spacing 14"-16" apart, in trenches 6"-8" deep.  A rough calculation of mid-point spacing made my shoulders slump.  62.5-feet more trenching suddenly presented itself, with the bold and italicized proviso that all this should be completed ASAP.  By the time my energies were depleted and daylight was eroding, I had the new trenches half completed, with the original trenches still needing their final round. 

Just as predicted, we woke to thunder and lightening and moderately heavy rain.  A half-inch, although two or more inches are anticipated tonight and tomorrow and perhaps beyond.  Even with intervening sunlight, the soil will likely be too muddy to work for days.  Meanwhile I nurse naked asparagus crowns and supervise incompletion. 

At least my body is smiling.