Plant the Onions Twice

The triangles and waves of onions are nice, but I got serious last week.  Most of the remaining bags of onion sets went around the edges of two of the garden beds.  Poking tiny onions into the ground took me straight back to wee childhood--maybe three years old.  My grandmother had me pushing the little bulbs into the ground with the pointy end up--the perfect planting task for a kid that age.

Root side up, looking a little worn

And now one of the Things I get to do today is plant a dozen or so of those onions again.  Seems that the throng of squirrels that roar through my yard routinely thought I'd buried something special to them under the onion sets. Apparently they had to dig up a bunch of them before deciding that no peanuts or sunflowers seeds were hiding in the freshly disturbed soil.  So not because I'm a workaholic and love to overdo it, but because I want these onions to have a chance to grow, I'm planting them again.

Barricaded for their own protection

You can also imagine my fascination with the crow and squirrel performance out back.  The crow delivered his terse, strident lines with great volume and clarity from the tree.  The squirrel (may have been the onion digger) scuttled across the ground to the other side of the tree.  The crow shouted his speech again from the top of the chain link fence, a much closer stage.  The squirrel ignored him.  The crow flew past, banked sharply and strafed the insolent squirrel.  Duck and run for cover!  In my eagerness to see the display, I moved too close, and the crow, my new ally, lost focus and flew away.  Darn!

He may have been the same one that sang from our roof for several mornings, intermittently pounding on the skylight.  I think I've found a friend.

A Triangle of Onions

I seldom do what most folks do.  Grew taller than most women (6' 1")--that set the bar right off--which was really out of my control, but gave me the foundational premise from which to work.  Admitting right up front here, however, that it took me at least 40 years to ease out of the need to conform, to slide into the joy of being myself, to expand a bit more every day into possibilities.

Waiting for imagination to strike--to be planted soon

Wow!  What that has to do with onions is yet to be revealed.  My bag of 80 onion sets has been waiting on the kitchen counter for a month nearly. They were white onions.  I was waiting until a convenient trip out to buy sets for yellow onions.  Done.  The bags (3 all together=240 onion sets) have sprouting slowly into the Things I get to do today for at least two weeks as other things pushed to the fore. Daily promises to the three-bags-full were broken.  But today I got a firm grip on my determination, and though it was time for a dinner I had not yet prepared, I planted onions.*

Triangle of onions

Contrary to the instructions on the bag, designed to keep all of us in conformity and an ordinary state (boring, same-old-same-old, mundane, unimaginative, uninspired, dull), I planted the onions in my flower bed, and not in rows, either.  I thought waves would be nice. I planted two two-row waves.  And then I planted a triangle--between the larkspur and the peony.  They told me they would be happy there.  I believe them.




*After sharing with neighbors and friends and planting a few to fulfill my promise, there are plenty left to tuck here and there about the yard in the sunny spots.  Just too fun for words.