shoulder to see indeed a raise of hands, including her hostess. Tilth? What is tilth? And what kind of meeting is this?
“Your compost bin, have you aerated it properly?”
Someone from the back announced, “It gets more air than I do,” causing laughter to ripple around the room.
“Good, good. However, Arthur, maybe you should go back to manually turning yours, gives you more wind thataway.”
Another ripple of laughter.
“How many of you took Lesley's barrel-and-crank pattern home and built that model?”
“Yes, even egg shells decompose fast with that method.”
By now Beth was getting whiplash from turning to see who responded.
“Good, good.” Mr. Moderator rubbed his hands together in what looked like glee. “I can see we will make a difference here in Jefferson City and our entire county. Now I'd like to introduce our expert for this evening, and then we will have a Q and A session following, so keep your questions for the end, and if he can't solve your problems, perhaps some of our master gardeners here will have answers for you.”
Gardeners? I thought . Beth sucked in a deep breath. Her house-plants grew up in a silk flower factory. With her minimal interest in digging in the dirt, she shuddered to think what the evening might contain. Shame she didn't bring that quilt square along that she'd started piecing so long ago. At least then her entire evening wouldn't have been wasted. If she could have found it, of course.
But ifyoudstayed home, you most likely would have assumed the fetal position either in front of the television or in bed, now, wouldn't you?
Admitting to the accusing voice, she made herself sit a bit straighter in the chair.
“Isn't he just the most darling man?” Mrs. Spooner's slight overbite and pink nose made Beth think of a rabbit, a rabbit's head on a lean race-horsy body, that was her hostess all right.
Beth turned her attention back to the front to catch the last of the speaker's credentials.
“And here he is, the foremost advocate of God's original recyclers, red worms, one of the earthworm family, scientifically known as rnegadrili”
A tall man, weathered of face and hands and with the lanky build one often associated with cowboys, took his place behind a bank of boxes lined up on the table. “Good evening, friends. Thank you for inviting me to speak on my favorite subject.” He clicked a pointer on and turned to a slide that filled the screen off to the side. At the same moment, someone dimmed the house lights.
Beth lasted about the first three minutes of the slide presentation on buying, growing, caring for, and sharing red squiggly worms.
The song from her childhood that meandered and wiggled through Beths mind had something to do with nobody loves me, everybody hates me, think I'll go eat worms and die, including all the various worm descriptions. None matched the can of red wrigglers that was passed around for everyone to look at and touch if so desired.
Beth desired to touch the nest of moving threads in the can about as much as a nest of garden snakes, or perhaps rattlers. She'd never seen either, but the thought alone made her shudder.
When at the end of the interminably long meeting they passed out baggies of red worms, she started to refuse hers, but when Mrs. Spooner announced that surely she didn't want to miss out on such an opportunity, she took the bag with only a slight shiver.
“Here, you may have these.” She passed the bag to Mrs. Spooner as soon as they got outside the door.
“No, no, you keep them.”
“Harriet, how are you?” A tall woman with a smile warm enough to melt snow turned around to greet them.
“Good, good, I saw that you put that composting idea to use.”
“Anything to make things easier, but I have learned to just bury much of the garden and house refuse between the rows and let the earth itself do the work.” She smiled at Beth.
“Teza, meet our new pastor's wife, Beth Donnelly. Teza Dennison has a wonderful
“Your compost bin, have you aerated it properly?”
Someone from the back announced, “It gets more air than I do,” causing laughter to ripple around the room.
“Good, good. However, Arthur, maybe you should go back to manually turning yours, gives you more wind thataway.”
Another ripple of laughter.
“How many of you took Lesley's barrel-and-crank pattern home and built that model?”
“Yes, even egg shells decompose fast with that method.”
By now Beth was getting whiplash from turning to see who responded.
“Good, good.” Mr. Moderator rubbed his hands together in what looked like glee. “I can see we will make a difference here in Jefferson City and our entire county. Now I'd like to introduce our expert for this evening, and then we will have a Q and A session following, so keep your questions for the end, and if he can't solve your problems, perhaps some of our master gardeners here will have answers for you.”
Gardeners? I thought . Beth sucked in a deep breath. Her house-plants grew up in a silk flower factory. With her minimal interest in digging in the dirt, she shuddered to think what the evening might contain. Shame she didn't bring that quilt square along that she'd started piecing so long ago. At least then her entire evening wouldn't have been wasted. If she could have found it, of course.
But ifyoudstayed home, you most likely would have assumed the fetal position either in front of the television or in bed, now, wouldn't you?
Admitting to the accusing voice, she made herself sit a bit straighter in the chair.
“Isn't he just the most darling man?” Mrs. Spooner's slight overbite and pink nose made Beth think of a rabbit, a rabbit's head on a lean race-horsy body, that was her hostess all right.
Beth turned her attention back to the front to catch the last of the speaker's credentials.
“And here he is, the foremost advocate of God's original recyclers, red worms, one of the earthworm family, scientifically known as rnegadrili”
A tall man, weathered of face and hands and with the lanky build one often associated with cowboys, took his place behind a bank of boxes lined up on the table. “Good evening, friends. Thank you for inviting me to speak on my favorite subject.” He clicked a pointer on and turned to a slide that filled the screen off to the side. At the same moment, someone dimmed the house lights.
Beth lasted about the first three minutes of the slide presentation on buying, growing, caring for, and sharing red squiggly worms.
The song from her childhood that meandered and wiggled through Beths mind had something to do with nobody loves me, everybody hates me, think I'll go eat worms and die, including all the various worm descriptions. None matched the can of red wrigglers that was passed around for everyone to look at and touch if so desired.
Beth desired to touch the nest of moving threads in the can about as much as a nest of garden snakes, or perhaps rattlers. She'd never seen either, but the thought alone made her shudder.
When at the end of the interminably long meeting they passed out baggies of red worms, she started to refuse hers, but when Mrs. Spooner announced that surely she didn't want to miss out on such an opportunity, she took the bag with only a slight shiver.
“Here, you may have these.” She passed the bag to Mrs. Spooner as soon as they got outside the door.
“No, no, you keep them.”
“Harriet, how are you?” A tall woman with a smile warm enough to melt snow turned around to greet them.
“Good, good, I saw that you put that composting idea to use.”
“Anything to make things easier, but I have learned to just bury much of the garden and house refuse between the rows and let the earth itself do the work.” She smiled at Beth.
“Teza, meet our new pastor's wife, Beth Donnelly. Teza Dennison has a wonderful
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