Last week I had someone out to the house to replant flower pots on our front porch and the patio. Since Kate has always handled these things herself, I wasn’t sure how she would take to having someone else do it for her. I decided the best way to approach it was to tell her that this was an anniversary gift to her. While we were in Asheville, the floral person took care of the pots on the front porch. This was just a small step in the process, and I hadn’t mentioned it to Kate.
This morning I noticed some trimmings around one of the pots when I turned off the porch light. As I walked back to the kitchen, I wondered if Kate had started pruning on the new plants. Then I thought that was unlikely. I got more curious as I started to leave for my morning walk and decided to check. As you know doubt predicted, she had been at work, but it was only a partial effort.
The floral person had planted a sky pencil in the center of each of the two pots to the side of the front door with some cascading plants around them. Kate had cut back half of one of the sky pencils so that one half is untouched with the other now half as tall as it was to start with.
I started to say I was frustrated by this, but that really isn’t so. I think of it as a humorous everyday occurrence. It doesn’t have any serious consequences, and it would be a simple matter to replace the whole plant. It’s possible that we won’t even have to do that. I’ll let the expert handle that; however, it’s a good illustration of the little everyday things that a caregiver, at least this one, doesn’t anticipate.
