What a difference 84 days can make!
That's how long it took our pole beans to unfold from sprouts, poking out of the ground into 7-foot vines sprinkled with flowers.
After 23 years of gardening, I still feel a little awestruck each time I see the tiny seed go into the ground, disappear for a few days, and then upset the dirt as an irrepressible, green offspring, reaching for sun, the single star that gives it life.
Pole bean plants extend for a while until tendrils appear that enable them to grasp the objects that the plants will climb. Up they surge for another period of weeks; then their flowers burst forth.
This summer, those blooms display as red and white. Each flower will convert quickly into a long, jade-colored fruit.
The harvest will follow. A bed with a dozen plants can generate hundreds of juicy beans.
Along another vein, what a difference 61 days can make! (Plus 19 years give
That's the time elapsed between our son Greg's birth and last Tuesday, when his mother and I left him at the university to begin training as a resident assistant.
He'll soon be guiding freshman business students through their own early steps into college life.
Yesterday, he and his colleagues learned in pairs another essential use of water as they practiced aiming high-pressure firehoses at imaginary fires.
Our kids grew up with our gardens: After 26 years of fatherhood, I'm still captivated by their unfolding, too, reaching for the stars that will inspire them.
Read Rich Kordesh's blog at http://jccindybanter.blogspot.com.