Transplants

Day 151: Several years back, I was bulling my way through brush on an abandoned and badly overgrown logging road with no other reason than wanting to see where it ended when a little fleck of white caught my eye. "Snowdrops?" I said. "In the middle of bloody nowhere?" That to me was an invitation. Some time later (it might have been a year or more), I ventured on the same journey again, this time with a trowel and plastic bag in hand, thinking I'd dig a few out of the soil to take home to put in my garden. I was not thinking in terms of "overgrown logging road" when I made my plans, and thus was moderately surprised when my trowel penetrated only the top half inch of moss before striking hard, compacted rock. No amount of force, physical or linguistic, could release the bulbs from their prison. I had just about given up on the project, intending to come back with dynamite (or at the very least, a pry bar) when I spotted a few near the edge of the roadbed. The rock was less consolidated there, and I was able to free up about a dozen bulbs. From that rough beginning, I now have a nice little patch of one of my favourite spring flowers, enough that I may move a few further along the northside flower bed where they will be welcome to spread to their hearts' content.