Gardening -- the beautiful Back Yard. I do it because I want it done, not because I have any particular love for it. There are a lot of things I would rather be doing. I could grow fat on wish sandwiches on white bread and leave my small misshaped lot to the pestilence of the season. I could take comfort in the fact my neighbours to either side are essentially useless in the out door beautification department, to the point that my doing nothing would look way better than their doing nothing plus old rusty cars and broken toys combo. But my OCD won't allow it. I want the garden just like the garden in the magazines I read in the check out line.

Yes, those gardens are all south of Maryland, in the U.S., owned by wealthy people, measured in acreage not square centimetres and hardy to some soft and lofty zone I cannot even imagine. But that's not the point.

Slowly I turn, in my unflattering yellow shorts before the season of shaved legs begins, and trudge into my not-garden to work my obstinate magic on it.

For weeks I dig, turn, yank and fill four large trash bins with clumps of crabgrass, Rasputin runner weeds and clover enough to drive a herd of cattle giddy with delight. I pick grubs by the dozens with my bare hands and collect them all wriggling, white and vile in an empty Zoodles can. Jo, my four year old, wants to keep them as pets. I say "no" but assure her they will go to a Better Place than under my once and future lawn. Then, when she is properly distracted digging a giant hole for a single grass seed, I pour salt on the grubs and watch them burn and writhe, hopefully in horrible pain.

"I toss them out on the road for the racoons" says one gardener. He is a far more generous soul than I. Nor will I leave them to the skunks that reside under the play house. I have seen the destruction they cause. And though I placed a cheerful, kindly lettered sign at skunk eye level "Please Replace Your Divots" they refuse to take heed. Illiterate poop heads.

We put that almighty grass seed in the hole Jo dug. We could also drop a full grown man and an old John Deere in there as well. Like all dogs and children, she loves to dig. Then we cover it over, chant a rapid growth incantation, and she goes in to wash her hands and watch a congratulatory hour of TV. I wish I could join her.

But while she is absorbed by Martha the Talking dog (as opposed to Martha the Eldest Sister) I fill in the hole, smooth and tamp the soil, and mix in the rest of the bag of grass seed, so much lighter now that that one Jo chose is gone and buried.

I have compressed the process for the blog purposes. The whole ordeal took several sessions of two to six hours and many glasses of wine and days of therapeutic whimpering to complete.

And in the end, this is what I learned:

1) generally grass will grow where you don't want it, won't grow where you do want it, unless you go out of your way to impress and intimidate it.

2) no matter how much grass seed they eat, the birds will not get too fat to fly

3) 4 year olds will cry when you fill in the beautiful holes they create

4) squirrels collect peach pits, bury peach pits but do not eat peach pits, and peach pits, together with the stickers off fruit, cockroaches, rats and Twinkies will survive a nuclear holocaust. As the doomsday clock ticks ever nearer to some despot pressing the Big Button I am collecting all the peach pits I found in the lawn and constructing a bomb shelter out of them.

5) blood meal may deter the squirrels from taking out their little back hoes and digging up all the tulips you so carefully planted in perfect rows, but it also drives the dog mad and makes the whole back yard smell like a horror house butcher's shop.

BUT -- more than a month later my grass is growing in, my garden furniture is comfy and clean, I have a decoy weenie strategically placed next to my chiminea in case the neighbours call the fire brigade on me for having a back yard fire, the flowers are thriving and the vegetables are yet to be discovered by the insects. Environment Canada tells me all danger of frost has passed. Clap your hands if you believe in Environment Canada!

(thunderous applause)

And I have a lovely back garden, almost like the ones in the magazines. Now if I could just keep people from lounging around it and messing it up.