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When I began gardening some forty years ago I never wore gloves. The only gloves I knew of were heavy cotton, fat and unwieldy, and I needed to be able to pinch and touch in my garden. So I used my bare hands. Fingers in the soil. My neighbour Joanne was a demon gardener and a nurse. She told me the soil was full of microorganisms, not all of them benign, and eventually she convinced me that skinny gardening gloves are the answer to everything.
A friend gave me the best pair of all: vinyl fingers and palms, with a fabric backing. Black and grey. Every day after gardening I would fold the two gloves together like a pair of socks and tuck them into my Lee Valley tool bag. They've served me for fifteen years.
Yesterday I left them out. I saw them on the shelf in the back yard and I was too lazy (though I prefer "lethargic") to gather them and put them away.
This morning I found one glove—one only—at the foot of the back steps. The other glove is gone. It wasn't a squirrel, in case that was your first thought. It was the big, fat, teenage raccoon that's been sniffing around lately. In the middle of the night he snuggles down into the bed of mauve flowers whose name I should know but don't, flattening the long stems beyond repairing. Yes, THAT raccoon.
I know it's my fault. I shouldn't have left the gloves out. He tried them both on and decided he only needed the right one, so I guess I'm looking for a right-handed raccoon. We spent fifteen minutes after breakfast trying to think like a raccoon, wandering the back yard looking for likely hiding spots. The glove is nowhere in the vicinity—not in the neighbours' yard, not in a watering can, not among Dino's empty wine bottles waiting to be picked up by the good Samaritan who returns them to the Beer Store, collects the deposit, and donates it all to the Food Bank. The glove is gone.
Later today I will email our near neighbours asking them to keep their eyes peeled for the Michael Jackson of raccoons brandishing his trophy on his right front paw. Surely someone will find it. If not, it's back to the Lee Valley catalog.
Musings blog: http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com
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