Let Daffodil the Gardens Fill

There is a contemporary fairy tale I read when I was a child, about a princess named Daffodil.  At Daffodil's christening ceremony, her fairy godmother gifts her with the following dubious cadeau:

Let Daffodil
The gardens fill.
Wherever you go
Flowers shall grow.

Needless to say, this results in certain inconveniences, once the poor girl outgrows baby bootees and strolls through the palace.  Poppies, coreopsis and goldenrod spring up in her wake, and before you know it, the throne room needs mowing.

I am no Princess Daffodil - flowers do not spring up for me without effort on my part.  When I want flowers in my yard, I generally wind up grubby, covered in sweat, and compulsively searching myself for ticks for days after I've finished planting.

Having yielded to temptation in the form of two fifty-bulb bags of daffodils at the Home Depot (they were under $17 for each bag, which seemed a bargain, and I was so very tired of looking at all the things in that store that are made of wood, metal, or bathroom porcelain) I realized in short order that the reason the previous homeowner had not planted any daffodils next to the long, long driveway that seems to cry out for such splashes of springtime frivolity is that the dirt off to the side of the driveway is clay-ey, full of rocks, and back-breakingly difficult to dig.  Undeterred, I went at it, and today I managed to get 35 out of the 100 bulbs into the ground.  This involved wheedling the dirt and rocks out of the holes to a depth of about 5" using a sharp digging instrument that resembles a pogo-stick designed by Professor Van Helsing for slaying vampires, throwing in a gloved handful of rich black garden dirt (also bought) sticking the bulbs into the ground pointy-end up, and then covering the darlings with more of the nice black garden dirt, finishing the job by tromping everything down with my ugly green rubber boots that, I hope, will keep the ticks at bay.

I turned up more broken bottles - the previous homeowner, it seems, was exceedingly fond of Bud Lite - and quite a number of recently-interred acorns, which of course set the squirrels to scolding violently. (The squirrels already dislike me because I let the dog out several times a day.)  The sound of their chirruping naturally made the dog, who was locked up in the house, entirely frantic, so I carried out my peaceful task of ensuring us of a Beauteous Springtime to the cacophonous din of the dog and the squirrels shrieking insults at one another.

But I always think that beauty is more important than, say, nicely-ironed shirts, and anyway, I don't particularly like to iron, so tomorrow I will go out with another 35 bulbs and get all sweaty and itchy thinking about ticks and Lyme disease, and I'll piss off the squirrels and the dog all over again.

Unless, of course, it rains.  Then I'll read that book about the Romanov sisters that I got out of the library.