The gardener’s dilemma.

“Hey, Ben! What have you and Silence been up to?”

“Oh, nothing.”

The moment these words left our friend Ben’s mouth, I could have kicked myself. Silence Dogood and I have been spending every spare minute for the past couple of months clearing our raised beds and adding compost to enrich them for this season’s plants. We’ve emptied our greenhouse and moved the plants that live there during the cold months outside, potting up, dividing, pruning, and adding our own super-rich earthworm castings to their pots. Then we’ve taken the rejuvenated plants to our deck or returned the ones that live in the greenhouse year-round (like cacti and orchids) to their comfy home.

We’ve sown greens and planted transplants, added onion sets and potatoes, potted and planted endless herbs, and potted up tender edibles like citrus, olives, figs, black pepper, vanilla, cardamom, lemongrass, and elephant ears. We’ve cosseted our perennial crops—rhubarb, strawberries, cilantro, asparagus, horseradish, comfrey, catnip, motherwort, chives, garlic chives, walking onions, garlic, Jerusalem artichokes, potatoes. We’ve potted up extras—peppermint, garlic chives, catnip, partridge-breast aloe, Cuban oregano, jade plant, aloe vera—to share with friends.

We’ve been planning two new raised beds. We’ve been feeding our three compost bins daily. We’ve been weeding and watering ad infinitum. We’ve been very, very busy.

And yet, when somebody in the non-gardening universe asks me what I’ve been up to, I say, “Oh, nothing.” Nothing that would interest you. Nothing that wouldn’t turn your whole world upside down when you grasp that I spend hours outside in the garden nurturing our plants and ourselves rather than sitting in front of the TV watching “American Idol” or “Desperate Housewives” or “Dancing with the Stars” or [your favorite show here].

I doubt that you’d be too excited about the shows that run 24/7 here at Hawk’s Haven: “Bad Dog!”, “The Scallop of Doom Knows All, Sees All,” “Who Threw Up on the Rug?!”, “Shut Up, Ben,” “GAAAHHHH!!! A Stinkbug Flew on Me!!! Get It Off! Get It Off!!!” and last, but by no means least, “How Can We Make a Fortune from Athena, the Dancing Cat?!”

Right, nothing ever happens around here. Silence Dogood is never the least bit ruffled by any least thing that comes her way. Our friend Ben is not the least distracted by dreams of grandeur connected to winning, say, the MacArthur Fellowship or the Nobel Prize. Silence and I never give so much as a thought to becoming #1 New York Times bestselling authors as we write our sci-fi and historic mystery novels.

Oh, no, no. What have we been doing? Nothing.

What have you been doing?

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