Rhubarb and Rebirth

I love rhubarb pie. I came to this love later than most food loves. My mother in law introduced rhubarb pie to me. While I was looking through a gardening nursery catalog last spring I saw a deal for asparagus and rhubarb crowns that I just couldn't pass up. I'm a bit of a sucker for sales and specials! So last spring I planted two rhubarb crowns.

One problem I have is that in my excitement in my home projects I don't thoroughly read the instructions. The one piece I missed was to find a place that has a little bit of shade. I did read it last fall after it looked like the hot summer sun had seemingly
killed off my two rhubarb plants. To see what was happening I reread the planting instructions and saw that nugget of wisdom to not plant it in too sunny of a spot. Oops.

I didn't give up completely on them. I try to hold onto hope in regards to my garden. It's really all I have! So I kept the areas that encircled what used to be my rhubarb plants clear of weeds, and even dropped a bit of compost on them. To my great surprise (and joy) one of them came up. .500 would be a record setting average in baseball even though my friends who are into baseball stats would remind me that it is an extremely small sample size.

The next weekend I went out to what I expected was the grave of the second rhubarb plant. In tow was a bag of grass seed, my bucket with compost and a handful of straw. As I knelt down to roll the stone in front of it's tomb I saw a rhubarb leaf sticking out of the ground. This is silly to write, but you can't imagine the joy that filled my heart as I offered up some of my compost to the ground that produced this little miracle.