My wonderful wife Michele has been a mom for nearly 30 years, so for this past Mother’s Day, I really tried to find an unusual present.
Earrings and goofy cards from Washington’s cute and eclectic Chocolate Moose store are a must and have been for years. But the usual, low-key Five Guys burgers and fries and a movie weren’t doing it for me this year.
Typically, Mother’s Day is the beginning of our gardening season. By then, Michele’s collected two dozen heirloom and oddball tomato plants and has mapped out where beans and zucchini are going in her enormous garden.
After last year’s spring and summer of washout rains that rotted seeds and ruined the flavors of the few plants that produced fruits and veggies, there are big hopes for this year’s garden, so I put my focus there.
She doesn’t need any more shovels, rakes, or clippers. I came across three heavy bags of 10-10-10 fertilizer after buying a new one. We’ve got enough fencing and path covers for years to come.
Then it hit me. Staring at the garden during a recent thunderstorm, I watched little rivulets form and the topsoil wash away. And, likely, with it the nutrients needed for a healthy garden. I finally had the answer to the garden and Mother’s Day. I’d get some old manure to freshen up the earth and raise the garden a bit.
Out in western Loudoun County, Va., where I live, there is no shortage of horses and hills of dung beside every barn. But that wouldn’t work. Fresh manure is full of grass and weed seeds. It’s got to sit and bake in the sun for a couple of years to kill those and turn into the black gold gardeners dream of.
Buying it from the Loudoun County Milling Co. in neighboring Hamilton was out because their dump truck would sink up to the axles in our muddy yard.
When I mentioned the problem to my buddy John Pankow, he immediately had the answer.
For the past several years, he has helped his neighbor clean out her barn. It’s championship poop, since his neighbor sometimes boards racing thoroughbreds.
They pile it on the edge of a field, and some of it has been sitting out for six years cooking in the hot sun. No seeds and no smell — a good thing, since our dogs can’t resist rolling in the fresh stuff. Just dark and natural fertilizer. And its owner didn’t even want anything for it, just happy I was helping to clean up her yard. I gave her $50 anyway.
I hooked up my biggest trailer, a 16-footer, and drove over to John’s neighbor where he met me with his old Ford tractor. He piled on a couple tons of manure, enough to splay the tires, and I drove off slowly, promising to return in an hour.
At the house, I used my tractor to deposit dozens of piles on the garden and then went back for a second load. Another two tons, and I was off to the garden again.
I had it spread and ready to rototill before Michele got home from work.
A lot of you may be thinking I was setting myself up for a smack in the head for such an unusual Mother’s Day gift. No roses or brunch?
Maybe I’m lucky, or maybe I just have a nose for a good gift when I smell one, but this load of manure was met with a hug and a cheer of “the best present ever.”
Paul Bedard is a senior columnist and author of Washington Secrets.
