Calendar Girl Blog: May Two Four, Sunday

I'm sitting in my hammock, in my backyard, typing this post on my iBook. My neighbour is playing his guitar in his backyard. Someone else is drumming. Birds are singing. The sun is out and a very gentle breeze is helping my windchime add to the music.

Then a firecracker goes off and everyone laughs.

Both households have been gardening all morning. I have no lawn on my property. Only twisty trails through a tangle of plants and trees. Last year, I invited 17 models over for an evening of photo taking for the 2006 calendar. Four photos from that evening will be featured throughout the summer months of 2006. For me, seeing my garden in all it's jungle glory will be my special pleasure in this, my fifth calendar edition.

They, my neighbours, and twenty year's my junior, are hoping to grow all their food in their large treeless expanse of a yard. They are ambitious and beautifully idealistic in their hope for themselves and their daughters future.

We've shared garlic plants and samples of herbs gone wild over the fence.

No matter what our individual goals, our joy of digging, planting and sculpting the patch of earth we call home is closely aligned.

Gardening on the May Two Four is equal to the tradition of tossing back a box of brew and setting off a whack of firecrackers. Generally, our chance of frost or god forbid, snow has passed. But everyone knows that the passing is short and our growing season even shorter. So like the explosion of a firecracker, May Two Four signals the gardening starting point, the 'go' that follows 'on your mark, get set...'

Breast of Canada; the sociology of a Canadian in calendar form.

Calendar Girl