This morning I had just settled into my cozy corner in Room 272 when I got a phone call from Mr. Appanah, our Building Manager, asking me if I could head outside and meet the mulch truck. He told me he had tried to discourage them from coming today because he feared the ground was not yet dry enough.
I alerted my two co-teachers and dashed outside to meet the truck, thinking it would take 5-10 minutes at most. The truck driver and attendant seemed determined to off-load the mulch today, even if they couldn’t get in inside the garden gates. One of them has delivered to us in the past without issue.
Though somewhat dubious myself, I helped them move the bleacher and plot out the least soggy route from the asphalt pathway towards the garden. The experienced man on the job got out of the truck to walk around and test the ground, which he apparently deemed okay. Who was I to question his experience?
Mud oozed around the back wheels of the truck. I opened the garden shed to grab shovels and rakes for the flummoxed workers, encouraging them to use any branches, blocks of wood, or stones they could find. Then I texted my co-workers about my thickening plight. Reidy Brown, my school garden partner, was thankfully happy to dash over to relieve me so I could get back to class.
Rushing the season doesn’t always work out so well, but there is now mulch on the premises, if also deep ruts in the grass. Nine days from now we will open the garden as planned. But tomorrow I’m packing an extra bag of grass seed
I like the allegorical nature of this post. Maybe we should all be careful of moving forward too fast, too soon, no matter how eager we are for the next phase to begin.
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