Living out here in the jungle and off the grid, my husband and I thought to ourselves, "We should have a vegetable garden."  Or maybe I thought that.  Besides, what kind of bear wouldn't have a vegetable garden in times like these?  Anyhow, my first plan was an heirloom vegetable garden.  That's fine and dandy until you take someone with a dormant plant addiction and let her loose on the internet.  In absolutely no time I had amassed almost $1,000 in seed purchases from three companies.  Unbelievably, my husband actually knows the true amount I have spent on the entire project, which is a huge milestone in our quarter-century relationship.  He might even think it's more than I actually spent, which is a new strategy in living harmoniously with someone who really isn't like you at all, especially when it comes to money.  He thinks I'm crazy, but it's an artsy, creative type of crazy that he occasionally finds endearing - unless we are arguing about money and he then reminds me how little artists contribute to the household in terms of monetary instruments.  Still, it's not like this my all-time high purchase involving gardening materials.  I used to work at a nursery.  I was a trustee for the Arizona Orchid Society.  I need not say anything else that might incriminate me.

Because this is a Kelly project and it is undertaken in Nicaragua, it is naturally complicated exponentially.

So what does a thousand bucks get you?  Fifty plus varieties of tomatoes, 12 watermelons, 30 plus melons, eight beans, twenty squashes....Let's just say that after planting about 40 percent of my garden with plans for only one plant of each variety of melon, watermelon, squash, eggplant, cucumber, tomato, and pepper, plus plots for sweet corn, I have come to the conclusion that the garden might not be big enough.  I don't know how big it is.  I was guessing 7,500 s.f., but it could be larger than that.  We have put up posts and barbed wire, a good thing since I saw two cows hanging out by the cattle guard at the entrance of our road last night.  That brings up memories of the day I lost it after seeing cows on my patio eating all my hibiscus plants and writing to my friends and owners of the development that, "If I had a gun right now, I would shoot all the cows."  Sometimes this country can really get to you.  

The garden was once nothing but scrubby trees, shrubs and grass on a long-ago cow pasture.   It was all cleared by hand, mostly by Marlo's hands.  Marlo is my ayudante/cuidador.  We also have Ronnie as a cuidador and sort of ayudante, but at 18 and kind of sheltered, he doesn't seem to like the garden.  I know he's thinking he'd have more fun on a construction site than digging, weeding and killing my plants.  He is trying, though, and with the fruits and vegetables ripening, he's getting into the groove and makes fewer mistakes.  He did an excellent job of putting up the fence.

Marlo cleared the garden with his machete and a lighter.  And the garden hose.  Actually, I was the one who needed the garden hose, as I was too impatient to delay burning and almost burned down the nature reserve, but that's another story.  The winds were crazy this year, delaying the burning and planting by a few weeks.   In my frantic impatience, I also decided to attack a consuelo tree with my machete, and ants came pouring onto my head.  I ran through the yet uncleared brush to the house where I started stripping my clothes and shoes off, begging Rob to douse me with water from the hose.  The vicious little mofo ants attacked every part of my body.  After a sufficient amount of naked flailing like some aboriginal snakewoman, I thought I had most of the ants off me and ran inside to use the shower.  As I passed into the house, Rob said, "Nice show for the cuidador" and that's when I looked over to see Ronnie with a slight smile on his face.  I can only imagine the stories about me down in the 'hood.  

It's been a lot of work and I have been working side by side with my crew.  I haul rocks, dirt, and brush.  I wield my machete on weeds, shrubs and small trees.  I dig holes and water the plants.  I am well known in El Carizel for my work ethic.  The folks out there have all seen me lifting big rocks out of the silt in the river bed, all day long.  I find that the guys work harder if I am working, too.  I am 5'6" and 124 pounds and I am heavier and taller than both of my workers.  They are strong despite their size, but we make a pretty funny combo.

Many people have asked if my husband has helped with the garden.  Not really.  There was a day that we were planting corn and he did move a couple wheelbarrows full of dirt into the garden, but that's pretty much it.  Oh, I forgot to mention that he planted the corn in the nude.  I once read a book on Wiccan gardening in which the author suggested planting naked in the light of the full moon.  We are planting sweet corn that allegedly needs more light than the 13 1/2 hours we get here, so I thought maybe the Wiccan ritual would help us overcome the light obstacle.  Our anniversary happened to coincide with the full moon, so I somehow convinced my beloved that the best way to celebrate would be to plant sweet corn in the garden while naked.  He actually consented.   True love.  Sigh.

The grid was ready and all we had to  do was push the seeds into the holes and then turn on the sprinkler.  Easy, right?  Not exactly.  First, we waited for the moon, but there were too many clouds.  Okay, we'll use a flashlight.  Between the champagne and the darkness and the mud, we planted 20 percent of the cornfield (a mere 64 holes) before giving up.  I don't know how he ran out of seeds halfway through his rows.  My left-right dyslexia kicked in and I wasn't sure what we had planted.  It was a comedy of errors and it will be a miracle if anything comes up.

My garden is growing by the day and soon everything will be planted.  Everything I have planted save for the eggplants has come up.  I have a  90 percent germination rate - I think (still waiting for the sweet corn).  A little black cat likes to run over the mounds of seedlings , crushing my beloved babies.  Nicky loves to play with me when I am weeding the garden.  Black Dog likes to roll in the garden beds and has since crushed several tomatoes and peppers, as well as the entire lettuce and spinach beds.  Bad dog!  We are also fighting different bugs with assorted organic pesticides that don't work as well as I'd like them to.  We just harvested our first cucumber.  We have melons that should be ready next week. Unfortunately, bugs got the first summer squash and golden zucchini.  

You can see photos of the garden here.

I hadn't really thought of the term "middle aged" as it might pertain to myself until a stream-of-consciousness-and-inebriation mini rant to a friend led me to discover that my former celebrity free-pass and fantasy, Bono, is now 49.  I wrote that I wouldn't have a mid-life crisis until Bono turned 50, which I instantly Googled and discovered that Bono has less than a year until he is officially middle-aged, assuming that he lives to be one hundred.

That Bono is no longer my fantasy should come as no surprise to anyone who saw the April cover of Spin magazine, with a glammed up Bono complete with eyeshadow, eyeliner and sparkles.  It wasn't like having a fantasy about a guy with a mullet for a decade was an easy thing to do, but the make-up was too much, which I promptly announced to the customers, staff, and the people trying to read magazines without paying for said magazines at the Miami International Airport Border's Bookstore.  "Oh my god, that does it, Bono's no longer my free pass!" I exclaimed, presenting the cover for Rob and everyone in the store to see.  Bono in glam was too much for even Rob to handle, which I gleaned from Rob's "WTF-You're-crazy-I-don't-know-her" glance as he took a step away from Bono's face on the magazine and thus a step away from me.  At least that's how I remember it - and I naturally have a much better memory than my beloved because I am a woman.  My ability to remember random bits of trivia and past wrongs is up in the top two percentile of my gender. 

What's even sadder is that my celebrity free pass is a not-yet-middle-aged-if-he-lives-to-be-one-hundred economic commentator/stockbroker Peter Schiff.  I barely know what the guy looks like, but listening to someone take on the paid hacks for several years does more than any heartthrob on the market.  You just have to listen to the man speak.  It's kind of like the way Bono sings.  It was easy to forget about the mullet because I was caught up in the music.  Okay, Peter's voice is slightly nasal in tone, but he speaks with so much passion and conviction - the Libertarian bear underdog for many years - how could he not be my celebrity fantasy?  Yes, nothing says "Sex!" more than crashing markets and bankrupt economies.  I am so pathetic.  Is this because I have no life here?  Or because I can't keep the names straight of the airbrushed faces in People magazine?  Or is it really bear economics?  I met a guy last week who was surprised I was a woman because we liked most of the same websites and could finish each other's sentences when it came to conspiracy talk.  "There aren't a lot a woman like you," he said, meaning that things like Operation Northwoods, Rex-84, the Bilderbergers and all that stuff just roll off my tongue.  Plus, I know a lot about economics and science, which are not usually subjects that interest my female friends.  I would be a hot ticket at a 9-11Truther's convention or a GATA protest.

So I stare at the reflection in the mirror too long, knowing that normally I look younger than my age, but looking back at photos from ten years ago, it hits me that I am in my forties.  It really didn't bother me until now, and I suppose it's something trivial enough that it will pass shortly, but it's been an obsession for almost a month, which is a long time in my imaginary world.