Before we got my brother, I helped my mom with the gardening all the time. My mom knew I was a smart girl when she first got me. She had this tree in the backyard that was there when we moved in. She built a little planter around it. She planted some little flowers around the tree in the planter.
Well, I got a better idea for the flowerbed. So I dug up all of the little flowers she planted. But then I thought it looked kind of bare...it needed something else...so I plucked some branches off the tree and planted them in the holes where the little flowers had been. Much better! My mom laughed to death.
Then Mom got more elaborate. She let her mom and her husband come help. They built some really cool planters and even installed a nice new drip system to water everything. Oooooooooooh, my gosh! That drip system is the funnest thing ever! It's just like a big huge long black snake, and you have to pull and pull and pull until you can find the end. And all of the little sprinklers at the end are like little chew toys, you just have to gnaw on them until they come off the end and then they're yours! It's so fun. I learned how to do this as soon as the drip system was built. Plus, there were some brand new plants in lots of plastic pots and in the ground, and those make the funnest chew toys also. My mom cried to death.
So she built a fence around the little garden. It was a kind of open fence made of lattice. Really, she should have known better. Not only could I SEE the drip system and plants I wanted to play with, I could very easily chew through the lattice. Duh!
So my Mom built a new fence around the garden. This one was made of 4X4 posts set in concrete, 2X4 rails, and solid cedar panels. It has a gate with a latch. Mom did a great job, but she sure did cuss a lot!
Then we got my brother, and I forgot about the garden for a little while. But guess what! The other day, I figured out how to open the latch on the gate! I am SOOOO smart! So the other day I opened the gate when my mom was at work, and I taught my brother about gardening, and about plants, and about plants in pots, and about drip systems. We gardened all day long while Mom was at work! I figured, hey, my Mom made that gate a very, very hard trick for me to learn - but I worked so hard, I learned it! She's going to be sooooo proud!
I was right! Mom must have been happy when she got home and saw all the work we did, because she laughed to death again. Then we got some treats. Then she bought a lock for the latch on the gate. I saw her taking pictures, but... I might have hid the evidence. I'll never tell.
Mom's rebuttal:
Yes, it's true. Haley has learned how to open a latched gate from the other side. And she then taught her brother how to garden. I tried to tell them they are the worst gardeners EVER, but I had to give them extra treats for innovation, problem solving, persistance and creative landscaping.
And here's where it gets a little spooky. I SWEAR, I really did take some pictures of this to post on this page. Said pictures disappeared from my camera. Nobody has been in my house except for the dogs. I'm starting to think maybe I should stay home and garden, and let Haley go to my job and work on cancer. She will singlehandedly find the cure before the lot of us.
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