Garden Hose

There is nothing like a drought to really test a gardener's green thumb.For instance, my garden would have fried recently during a horrid dry spell, were it not for the thumb I kept pressed to the garden hose.Every day of the drought, I spent an hour watering thirsty plants -- 30 minutes each morning and 30 more at night. The personal sacrifices were enormous. I didn't watch "Jeopardy!" for a month.During a drought, mornings become monotonous: I stagger outside at dawn and haul the hose to another part of the garden, 100 feet from the house.

Sometimes I want to rope off the back yard and sell tickets to the carnival that goes on there. It shouldn't be difficult. The events change daily.Last week, for instance, I arrived home to find the dog perched atop an 8-foot compost heap, rabbits eating the fruit trees and my wife dancing around the lawn, chirping and flapping her arms like a bird.The county fair can't top this, I thought.I circled the block twice to make sure I had the right house. Egad, I had.My arrival had little effect on the strange scene.

Usually on Valentine's Day, I do what most men do. I grit my teeth, pry open my wallet and shell out big bucks for a dozen roses -- flowers I could pick for free this summer.This year, however, I have other plans. Let others flock to the florist. I'm giving my wife something different tomorrow.Forget flowers, she's getting a gift that won't wilt next week. A gift she can savor all summer.She's getting a dozen wishes, not roses. Wishes for garden chores that I'll complete without complaint.

The alarm rings ridiculously early, at 5:30 a.m. But I spring out of bed as if late for work.My wife yawns, frowns and yawns again."Whazzamadda?" she says."

Dear Santa,Help! Here's the wish list of a desperate gardener. It's been a rough year for garden tools. Many of mine are battered or broken. Don't bother hauling this stuff down the chimney. Just drop these goodies in the garden and I'll use them directly.This is what I need:* A garden hoe. I know, I know -- every year I ask for a hoe, hoe, hoe. All of mine are chipped and bent from striking roots and rocks. Bring me Super Hoe, Santa -- one that even Mr. MacGregor couldn't wear out.* A pruning saw. This crescent-shaped tool is made to trim hard-to-reach branches.

I WAS enjoying dinner in a nice restaurant with an old friend and his very pregnant wife when suddenly the conversation took an ominous turn."We're videotaping the birth of our child," my friend said proudly.I waited for his wife to reach over and crack him on the skull with the pepper grinder and say, "Over my dead body, sport."Instead, she flashed an eerie Stepford Wives-like smile and chirped: "Yes, it'll be so exciting!"So it's come to this, I thought. My social life has declined to such a level that I am actually keeping company in a cheap Mexican joint with a madman and his equally unstable wife.

AROUND HERE, March is a "tweener," a month that falls between real winter and authentic spring. In March, you are not sure whether you should haul the garden hose and trowel into the back yard, or stay holed up inside the house, planning and pining. Over the span of a few days, you often end up doing both. Last week's unusually warm weather had winter-weary masses streaming into the sunshine, peeling off clothes, pretending it was May. Next week, reports warn, there is a chance of snow showers.

A pair of Chesapeake Bay Foundation employees left Annapolis Saturday morning on a 1,300-mile journey through the six states in the bay's watershed — by bicycle. John Rodenhausen and Beth McGee will attempt to ride through the 64,000-square-mile watershed, which stretches to Cooperstown, N.Y., and as far west as the Shenandoah Valley, to raise money for the Bay Foundation. They will spend their first night in southern Pennsylvania, pedal to New York and circle back through western Pennsylvania, then to Virginia and return via the Eastern Shore over the next three weeks.

Spring is busting out all over. My yard shows all of the symptoms.The lawn is awash in a rainbow of colors, from golden dandelions to purple-flowering ground ivy. Motorists stop to gawk. I presume they are envious.All over the yard, the wildlife is stirring. Suddenly, there are fresh mole hills in the lawn and carpenter ants streaming into the tool shed. (I believe the "carpenter" ants have come to construct a new wing on the shed. But my wife is skeptical and suggests we check it out.)Recently, I awoke at dawn to find the flower bed overrun by a roaming band of wild chickens terrorizing the countryside.

Children are not the only ones getting toys this Christmas. At the National Aquarium in Baltimore, a room normally used to hold classes for visitors was turned yesterday into a version of Santa's workshop, in which staff members and volunteers - a few in elves' hats - made dozens of toys and gadgets to keep the aquarium's tenants occupied, focused and happy. "We'll make toys or objects for the animals that stimulate some of their natural foraging behavior," said Crystal Mumaw, a marine mammal trainer, as festive antlers bobbed on her head.