A New Clock

G must have gone shopping today.  The tick, tock is very loud.  I am not used to any noise in the house. I am one of those people who like complete quiet.  Well, I like it when I am home.  The clock is something we need.  Especially when the power goes off.

At work, today, we had a very loud bird singing to us.  The greenhouse doors are open the entire time we are open for business.  No matter what the weather is outside.  We have birds flying into the greenhouse all the time.  I watched a hummingbird sip from the impatient tables on Wednesday.  R found two baby opossums sleeping in one of the pot containers yesterday morning and a bullfrog has set up housekeeping in the water plants container.  Work is not quiet.  And the resident chipmunks race in and out feeding on the sunflowers seeds in the bird food aisle.  We need a cat.  Every greenhouse needs a cat.

I managed to adopt out three more tomatoes and two peppers or perhaps it was three peppers.  I didn't bring any plant material home today.

I helped an older customer by bagging seed potatoes for him.  And going down to the greenhouse for a pumpkin and a slicing cucumber start.  I also carried a bag of fertilizer out to his truck.  One of the girls at the front counter got him a folding to chair to sit on while I was finding things.  He handed me his check so I could fill it out after he signed it and wrote in the total.  I was nearly overcome with grief.  His situation (age and health) were so close to what my dad was like in his last years.  My dad had to hand his checks to others to write after he signed.  Even writing this breaks my heart.  I came back in from putting his things in the truck (I had no idea how he would get them out) and as I walked quickly to the lunchroom I said, he reminds me so much of my dad.  And that was all I could say.

It's nearly Father's Day. I wish I had been a better daughter to my dad.  I wish I had spent more time with him. I wish most of all that he would have come to live here with us so we could have made the last years happy ones for him.  But he wanted me to leave my home and come live in his.  I went when I could but my life was here.  Was that selfish of me?  Today, with this old guy, I felt it was.  He was so tired, old and weak but still wanting to plant potatoes and a pumpkin.  At his own house.  In his own way.

I, almost, it was very close, offered to follow him home and help plant those potatoes.