dreams...

Strange, I never remember dreaming about the garden before. Several nights ago I dreamed that someone in the neighborhood jumped a few backyard fences into my yard and started digging up my strawberry plants with a shovel! I run out to confront the thief: "Hey, stop! You're stealing my strawberries!" and he starts defending himself, before long we are in a halfway-amicable argument. Then my husband comes out and starts yelling threats and cussing the guy out, nearly takes a swing at him. The would-be thief takes off quickly, over the fence again. My fresas are saved.

The other dream I had a few days later. I'm in my mother's house, but her backyard is quite different, it all slopes up away from the house in one long hill, and she's got the entire hillside planted, a garden of vegetables and flowers. It's very early spring and we go outside to be amazed by a tree growing just outside the door. It's a freak tomato plant that somehow survived the winter, and not only that, but grew into tree dimensions. It's even got bark and stiff branches like a real fruit tree, but the hanging red globes are definitely tomatoes. We're all awed at this tomato-tree. I hike up the hill through the tangle of plants to see what else is growing. Lots of things I can't identify, or assume are weeds- but here is an uneven row of orange cosmos coming up where last years' were planted, and over there the wide leaves of swiss chard. I'm delighted at the rambling bounty of it all, even though half will need to be weeded out and tamed.

This last dream I had just yesterday. My backyard is flooded, an inch or two of standing water all over the lawn. I walk out into it, looking down at my feet and there are slugs swimming through the water, all over. Big, fat spotted slugs thicker than my thumb. An opportunity to get rid of them! so I run inside, get a plastic bag, and back outside start grabbing slugs out of the water, plop into the bag. They're wet and slippery but my hands don't get too slimy. I keep stooping to grab the biggest ones until the bag is full and then take it back towards the house, to tie up and throw in the trash bin. But the slugs keep squirming and crawling out, no matter how tight I tie the bag shut. I'm worrying they're all going to escape when I wake up.