Driven to Dig

 Welcome to The Spot Writers.

Prompt for April: write a story about “expectations for spring.”

This week’s story was written by Phil Yeats. In September, 2021, he published The Souring Seas, the first volume in a precautionary tale about the hazards of ignoring human-induced climate change. The second volume, Building Houses of Cards, appeared in May 2022. Book three should be out soon. For information about these books, or his older cosyish mysteries, visit his website– https://alankemisterauthor.wordpress.com/

 

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Driven to Dig

by Phil Yeats

 

The aging homeowner with an urban house on a small lot ventured forth as he always did in the spring to prepare his tiny vegetable bed for the coming growing season. He was muttering to himself as he turned the soil with a spade.

His neighbour, coffee cup in hand, approached the fence separating their properties. “Trying to psych yourself up for another growing season, are you?”

The homeowner drove his spade into the ground and turned to his neighbour. “Same thing everything spring. I feel compelled to come out here and plant my tomatoes, snow peas, lettuce, zucchini, and most years something new just for the hell of it. And what do I get for it?”

“The joys of freshly harvested produce,” his neighbour suggested, but his tone suggested he didn’t really mean it.

“Fat chance! Lousy weather will set stuff back and limit my tomatoes to a meagre few. Deer will destroy taller things like my snow peas. Slugs will get the low-lying lettuce…”

“So why do you bother?”

“I really don’t know. I avoid New Year’s resolutions, Valentine’s Day, Easter candies, July 1^st celebrations, and everything else except Christmas. But every year, I get sucked into this spring-time obsession for growing vegetables. It just isn’t worth it!”

His smirking neighbour held his empty cup upside down. “But when I go inside for another cup of coffee, you’ll go back to your digging, won’t you?”

The homeowner sighed. “Suppose so. We all need our manias, and I guess this will always be mine.”

 

The Spot Writers – Our members:

Val Muller: http://www.valmuller.com/blog/

Catherine A. MacKenzie: https://writingwicket.wordpress.com/wicker-chitter/

Phil Yeats: https://alankemisterauthor.wordpress.com/

Chiara De Giorgi: https://chiaradegiorgi.blogspot.com/