On the first of April, the farmer planted a seed.
Just one.
At the edge of the kitchen garden, in the warmest corner, where the wall held the heat.
A seed from a jar so old the label had faded to nothing.
He didn’t know what kind it was.
He planted it anyway.
Because you never knew. 🌱
🌾 The Waiting
May came.
Everything else in the garden came up.
The beans. The squash. The courgettes, which always came up annoyingly fast and needed cutting back almost immediately.
The corner stayed bare.
June.
Still bare.
July.
The farmer crouched down and looked at the corner.
Nothing.
“It’s done,” he said. “Dead seed. Happens.”
He marked the spot to turn over.
August.
He hadn’t got around to turning it over.
September.
Still hadn’t.
October, and the garden was going to sleep, and the farmer crouched at the corner one last time to turn it over before winter —
And stopped.
🌱 There.
A single green shoot.
Small.
Certain.
Unmistakably alive.
Six months after planting.
Just here. Just now. Ready.
The farmer sat back on his heels and looked at it for a very long time.
“Six months,” he said.
The shoot said nothing. Shoots don’t. But it stood up in the October light and looked like something that had been working very hard underground for a very long time and was finally ready to show what it was.
💛 Mila Comes for the Winter Watch
Mila had been there in April when the seed went in.
“What kind is it?” Mila had asked.
“Don’t know,” said the farmer.
“Will it grow?”
“Don’t know that either.”
Now Mila stood at the corner and looked at the small green shoot in the October earth.
“It came up,” said Mila.
“Eventually,” said the farmer.
“You nearly dug it up.”
“I know,” said the farmer. “Good thing I’m lazy about turning soil.”
They both looked at the shoot for a while.
“What do you think it is?” said Mila.
The farmer shook his head.
“We’ll have to wait and see.”
Mila took a stick and put a careful ring of stones around the shoot.
So nobody would step on it.
So it would know someone had noticed.
Some things just need more time than you expected.
That doesn’t mean they aren’t coming. 🌱