Still Learning
Despite my aversion to drastic changes, I’m a fan of certain innovations. My newest fascination is with the hydro-tech expandable garden hose, a wonderful improvement over the heavy vinyl hose I dragged around (and tripped over) in my youth. At 80, I’m not as agile as I was at 16, nor as strong. I still love to garden, however, and find using a garden hose more convenient than lugging a two gallon watering can from spigot to plot.
The rental house I’m in is not equipped for gardening ease. The former owner was a junk collector and his yard was a final resting place for old rusted machinery and other sundry old and rusting objects. When he died, the new owner spent three months removing said materials and, along with them, the contaminated top soil. When I rented the renovated property, I was impressed with the numerous wood-chipped garden beds surrounding the house. I envisioned a multitude of flowers and bushes in the front, an herb garden, and a vegetable plot in back. Alas, a shovel revealed they were like the news videos lately - they looked real but they were fake - four inches of loose stone covered in two inches of black bark mulch. The soil underneath was pale brown and flinty.
Reluctant to give up my flowery dreams, I bought some rectangular, waist-high planters, a large metal oval structure, and a couple of shepherd’s crooks for hanging plants. I bought top soil and compost and potting soil (a novel experience since I’d always had good soil and/or a farm nearby for composted manure. Buying soil was out of my comfort zone), and filled the containers. I bought plant starts and unpacked the seeds I’d saved from previous gardens. I bought hanging baskets from which spilled petunias and ivy, geraniums and begonias. I bought a watering can.
Oh, the loveliness of it all. And oh, the self-chastisement when it finally occurred to me to find an outside water source. There was one, but it was located in the very middle of the back side of the house. An innocuous (and inefficient) spigot jutted from the cement basement wall. It looked older than I did, though I knew the house was almost 30 years younger than I. When turned, the flimsy flat handle came off in my hand while water spurted in four directions at once. I tucked a gallon water jug under the spray and managed to tame the water long enough to fill the watering can and an extra jug, getting soaked in the process. Eight-year-old me didn’t mind the wet. Eighty year old me minded the weight. It took six trips to the spigot to fetch enough water for all the plants. I dreamed of garden hoses that night.
The next morning I went garden shopping yet again, looking for a hose that might reach the 150 feet around to the furthest plant without costing the earth and breaking my back in the bargain. What I found was that in the years I wasn’t paying attention to garden hoses, one had been invented that was light weight, expanded when it was full of water but contracted when empty, and didn’t kink! I bought two blue and white versions equalling 150’ with solid brass fittings, an on/off valve, and a spray nozzle.
I happily coupled the hoses, screwed the coupling to the spigot, and turned on the water. Nothing. Nary a drop. I looked at my new hose. I looked at the spigot spraying the side of the house despite my best attempts at tightening the connector. Ah! The on/off valve was off, not on. It also didn’t budge. I turned the water off. I found a screw driver and loosened the valve. Nothing. I beseeched YouTube to teach me how to use my new hose and was told that often the on/off valve was sometimes tightened to an extreme at the factory and that I merely had to keep trying to turn it until it yielded. Huh. At that moment my landlord appeared. I beseeched him to help instead, and with a flick of his massive thumb, he opened the valve. I took a hammer to the other connector, turned the water back on, and whoosh!
That evening I took my new hose for a trial run. Water still leaked from the spigot but with less exuberance so I placed a bucket underneath to catch the runoff, un-twirled the hose from its holder, hauled the whole length around the side of the house and commenced watering. As I made my way back in the direction of the spigot, I looped the hose over my arm. Even when I’d finished the last garden box, the weight of the loops still didn’t seem to equal the weight of the full watering can. I was delighted. I was also dry. At least until I turned the water off and began to unscrew the coupling. Then all the water still trapped in the hose gushed out in four directions, soaking me from head to foot while the hose itself writhed on the lawn like a giant blue snake. Apparently I still have something to learn about hydro-tech.
