Land Girl

A few weeks ago PBS telecast a production called "Chateau."  I saw two episodes.  The show tracked the ideas and work of an English couple who had purchased a French Chateau in disrepair and were converting the grounds and main building to a entertainment venue, particularly for weddings.  The man was really into gardening and he desired to convert the old walled garden back to a garden for produce and flowers that could be used for themselves and for their events.  He also rebuilt an old greenhouse that backed up to one wall.  He commented that he was hoping to make his wife, Angel, into a land girl.  He wanted Angel to pick out the types and grow the flowers for their venue. Angel visited some other large Chateaus in the region to get flower ideas. While Angel could make flower arrangements, she was not a Land Girl in growing flowers. 

That television production has now led to another nickname for my wife--Land Girl.  This is in addition to her Farm Girl, Re-Purpose Girl, and whatever other nicknames I have created.  At least I am not like Ray Barone who, pretty much every episode of "Everybody Loves Raymond" gives a different nickname for his wife Debra.  I suspect Land Girl is pretty much a British term, as there is a series about Land Girls during WWII  women who took up chores to raise food.  My Land Girl is quite different from the pink highlighted hair young woman Angel in "Chateau." The Land Girl in my household many times freely moves perennial flowers around in our flower beds, not to mention planting and caring.  Her flower knowledge increased working at a greenhouse last year. She misses working at the Greenhouse this year, but Covid is a different kind of animal. She is a busy bee in the garden and sometimes moves stuff to satisfy her appetite for work.  I suppose it is natural for a Land Girl to not stop and smell the roses.

As the weather has gotten nicer over the past few weeks Land Girl and I, have been out doing lawn and garden work.  In my last post I talked about how I got stuck trying to haul stone, and how the Land Girl helped get the car unstuck. Although she has left it to me to repair the yard. Yet, my wife also assisted with unloading the stones, after the first trip, from the back of my car by filling buckets while I carried the buckets to the flower bed.  Not only that, she helped haul the wall stones from the back of the Jeep to the backyard.  I bought ten wall stones and they weighed about 480 lbs total, so an average weight of 48 lbs each.  I am sure a few weighed more and a few less, nonetheless still significant weight to haul to the backyard.

In helping with the wall, Land Girl tore down part of the wall, and helped reconstruct by either placing stones or picking out the stones for me to place.  She also assisted with loading and moving dirt that was taken out during the reconstruction project. Not to mention assisting with all the cleanup work. When she was just a few months short of giving birth to our oldest child, Land Girl was out assisting in the initial construction of the wall by picking out stones for me to haul and put in place.  Her assistance, on the reconstruction of the wall, turned what probably would have been a full day job into about six hours. Yet, she assisted this past week too.

On April 28 I cut down some honeysuckle and trimmed other honeysuckle which has grown in the "natural" portion of our backyard.  I used to use my handsaw, but decided to use my chain saw. As I am sawing all of a sudden she appeared. She started hauling the brush down as I cut,  but part of me wonders if she heard the chain saw and figured she better come out in case anything happened to me. Later that morning, while she started to make cookies, I pulled out a lilac that had not been doing well for a few years, and she came out to help while the dough cooled.  She loaded buckets with the stone that was around the lilac bush, and hauled some of the brush and parts of the roots.  Of course, this is nothing compared to the chickens she used to assist in butchering.

While Angel has struggled to accept a partial Land Girl roll in the PBS television show "Chateau", my spouse has never had a problem with getting involved in gardening or yard work.  She is my laborious Land Girl.