Got Junk?

I am a garden junk junkie. I have all sorts of wonderful things tucked into my flower beds: bird houses, found objects, interesting pieces of drift wood, and chunks of marbles. One of my favorite pieces of “junk” is a scrap metal dinosaur—or maybe it’s a dragon, I can’t really tell---that my oldest son welded together when he was nine years old and went on a “take your son to work day” with dad. The dragon-saurus is wonderful and deserves a name, but somehow has never acquired one. Nevertheless, it faithfully stands guard in my garden, and gives maundering elk the evil eye.

There are all manner of stepping-stones that my kids have made over the years. My favorites are the ones they made in Mr. Westerberg’s 3-4 grade class that include the hand print of the “artist” pressed into the back. It’s hard to believe my towering six-foot sons ever had hands that small, but I have the proof, imprinted in cement.

My gardens also seem to be a repository for forgotten toys. Every so often, when transplanting a seedling, I’ll unearth a long-lost Hot Wheel car or a Match Box bulldozer that was abandoned when the Worst Mother in the World made the construction crew come in and take a bath. And then there are the plastic animal figurines that wander around the edges of my garden. And, unlike the real life elk, they never nibble. I have a T-Rex that menaces a hapless giraffe, a great white shark that I am convinced functions as a scare slug—that’s like a scarecrow, but for (obvi) slugs. At times, the T-Rex and the Shark have ganged up on poor Mister Giraffe but they usually hang out in different flowerbeds. And it’s for the best, really. Someone has to keep an eye on all my “junk.”