Today we got outside, into a lovely warm end-of-winter San Francisco weekend, and grubbed about in the dirt. I was feeling blah, and sleepy, and generally a bit malcontent, wondering if i was picking up R's bug. But no! All i needed was a little sunshine, sweat, dirt, and plant-tending to feel worlds better.

I'm not sure why mucking about in the dirt, caring for (in my case, specifically, herbs) plants feels so good. Getting thoroughly dirty is definitely part of it (and i hate the feeling of dirt caked under my nails, so it's not that i fundamentally like being dirty...). The hippy UCSC-roommate in my head whispers something about connecting with the earth, but while part of that may be true, it's just a little too hippy-lovechild-earthmother for me to beleive that's all of it. Maybe it just has to do with feeling like i'm a kid, waiting for the sweet peas i planted every year to bloom. (We all took part in the veggie garden, and the strawberry plot, but the sweetpeas were entirely mine, in a separate plot in the back, privy to my cuttings for blossoms and mine alone.)

At any rate, the herbs that made it through the winter have been looking great from the recent rains and sun, and now they look even happier, with the weeds gone and compost tucked in around them. I still have to decide what else we're going to plant this year....