Mississippi Mud

At the time of writing this, I still have some Mississippi mud lodged underneath my fingernails from yesterday's gardening. 

Yesterday morning, I worked in the chef's garden across the street from the restaurant. It is in the back of a convent and the oldest building (supposedly) in The South. It is quiet and peaceful and I've discovered that I really enjoyed gardening, so I didn't mind waking up early to be there. My coworker and I cleared out two beds where I had planted corn, yellow squash, kabocha squash and sunflowers. Wow, those plants grew fast! We weeded about two or three weeks ago and already the weeds were back in full force. Here are some pictures of the growth:

It was hot! So I was sweating up a storm! I headed home to shower and relax before my shift at the restaurant would begin later in the afternoon. Then I got a call from Chef B, asking me if I'd rather work in the garden clearing a few more weeds instead of in the kitchen. I quickly ran through a list of pros and cons in my head:

Pros:

-Outdoors instead of indoors

-Birds singing

-Hearing live music in the distance

-Quiet and unsupervised

-Only work for a few hours

-A night off!

Cons:

-95 degree weather

-Less money

-Real physical labor

-Bad tan lines

-HOTTT!!!!

Well I decided to just go for it and said I'd show up at 3pm. I ended up working until 6:30. Whew! I was pretty tired afterwards, but glad that I had chosen the garden because it was a lot more fun and I was in the mood for it. I cleared two more beds on my own, worked around Lemon Verbena (ahhh smells amazing!!!), the beginnings of marigolds and some mint. Even the leaves of the nearby kumquat tree smelled good! Today I am sore but happy to have gotten the opportunity to spend more time outside.

And if you haven't ever had Baskin-Robbins' Mississippi Mudd ice cream, try it! Whoever named it was right on - that mud is dark!