Gardening by Zoom

Seedlings pulled by Dick Happy

I was in our car in the parking lot of the Venice Community Center, waiting for Diane and my second vaccination shots. I was also participating by phone on a Zoom meeting of the UUCS executive committee as I wanted to be sure to fulfill my role as church treasurer.  Being “thoroughly modern Richard”, I found I could do it by smart phone. Our car inched forward in the vaccination lane, and I could see a technician approaching, needle in hand.  I immediately hit my phone’s “mute button” - I certainly didn’t want the rest of the executive committee to hear me howling in pain from the forthcoming “jab”. “This will just burn a bit,” said the technician with a smile. She stabbed, I flinched, but of course I could barely feel it. We pulled into the fifteen minute “wait to see if you are having a problem” line, I unmuted and continued my participation in the meeting.

“I like this idea of participating in a meeting by Zoom,”I said to Diane on our way back to Sarasota. “Gardening by Zoom”, maybe?” (Diane is chair of the Grounds Crew.)

“Nope,” she said. “Your physical presence is needed. It is Golden Rain Tree seedling season and you are very good at pulling those ubiquitous little guys out of the ground. They are running amok”. 

Really? Running amok? Is that some gardening term? But I knew better than to complain and on the way home we stopped at Church. I jumped from the car, flexed my jabbed arm and proceeded to pull one hundred seedlings from the memorial garden. “Running amok” indeed!

---