I'm rich! Rich!!!

We got a load of compost today and I think it's humming something deep and soft and warm - a siren song for the garden's best friends. Over the years, I've tried tilling in some of this and spading in some of that to loosen up our fertile-but-heavy soil, but it was when I quit thrashing the ground (and myself) that I discovered we have a full-time gardening crew who, for a few yards of compost and a good rain will work over each planting bed without disturbing a single plant, incorporating all that organic matter, loosening the soil and aerating it to a faretheewell. You call them worms; I call them my gardening staff.

Other things that make me feel RICH:

• a stack of clean clothes


• jars of peaches cooling from the canner
  


• change in my pocket (!!)


• having a new book I haven't started reading yet


• quail talking in the bushes


• being outside at night with Bill

Money in the bank? (Yawn) Sure, it's nice. I just can't get very interested, though. I guess it's that momentary feeling of absolute goodness, rather than the total of a column of figures, that makes me feel well-to-do. Would it be different if I were hungry or homeless? Yeah, some . . . but I'll bet I'd always stop to bathe in a perfect sunrise or love the feel of 87 cents in my hand.