Shit! I say as my good sneaker slides into the wet muddy dirt washed onto the patio by a refreshing storm. I’ve lived here six years long enough to know this happens yet am not noticing my foot placement. I’m looking at two sunflowers sitting on top of the BBQ, to see if they are still thriving in their 2”x3” seeding plastic (ugh) pots bought at the Earlybird garden green house.

Their brothers and sisters have succumbed to being eaten by a rabbit, I figure, after three days of seeing they weren’t. Too hopeful to not place the chicken fence around them. It’s a battle between the animals and plants; who will survive?

Don’t get me wrong, get me right, I love placing my hands in the dirt, mother earth; I will not wear gloves; I gladly wash her from under my fingernails. No place for fingernail polish, only rainbow-colored toes are allowed.

As I toil in the soil, pulling weeds, axing the dry dirt, mixed with miracle grow garden soil, fondly placing the young plants, I say out loud: “I hope you like your new home.”

I break off a chocolate mint leaf, place it on my tongue, to taste, to chew, not just to smell. Yes, it is powerful, to smell and then actually taste as dark chocolate mint, my favorite flavor.

I am reminded it is not the toil that makes the mint return each year, but the dirt I’d rather call soil. Soul of my pleasure.