Sharon's blog: Wishful thinking

You know how you always want what you can't have? Mom always said, 'You can't eat all that chocolate, it isn't good for you.'

The more she said that, the more I wanted.

Same with poppies. For whatever reason they elude me. One year I planted oh, maybe a million or more seeds.  Poppies, just any kind of poppies would do. I think I had 3 seedlings and one bloom that year. Then I was in Alaska and found the blue Himalayans. Oh, surely they'd bloom for me. Nope. I killed a whole bunch of those babies that year too.

So last year I thought I'd start them indoors early and I did and they looked great when I left for my trip to Iowa in mid May. I left them in a sheltered area on my back deck, with instructions for my neighbor to sprinkle water on them as she kept tabs on my cats. She had to come in that door anyway and walked past the poppies every time.

There wasn't a sign of them when I got home. Not even one wilted leaf, just a bunch of brown slightly moist soil in little plastic pots. I guess they already composted themselves so I gave up again and dumped the poppy composted soil into a big pot for other things.

I've thought about those poppies all winter long. Painted a blue one on the old wooden chair seat.

It's too hot here in KY for the Himalayans, I tell myself. Must also be too hot for all the others too.

So I found an old garden bench at a yard sale. It was already yellow and sturdy, not too weathered, not weak at all.  I gave it another thinned coat of yellow, just to sort of seal it one more time. It has nice solid end pieces, just right for painting.

Heh!

It's sort of like hiding the chocolate and telling my mother that my little brother ate it.

There's more than one way to have poppies in my life.

But the bench isn't finished yet. There's still the seat with nothing at all on it.

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