Drabble year

[rabidsamfan]

Summertime's a busy time if you're a hobbit with a garden to tend to. There's beds to tend and seedlings to thin and the first sweet fruits of harvest to gather. The grass grows so fast after the rains that there's days it's all I can do just to keep it from touching sky. Mr. Frodo, I say, what you need is sheep, and that makes him laugh, and say he would, if sheep had the sense to eat the grass and keep out of the begonias. Sheep wouldn't share their luncheon pie neither, he says, and tucks into mine.



Autumn starts with haying, really, though the sun is hot and most folks think it's summer. But the harvest starts in earnest with the grass. Earlier on, our gatherings go into our bellies, if you see what I mean, and 'tis only a share of the squash that's like to end up in the cellar. But hay we gather for winter fodder, and when once we've garnered enough to keep our creatures through the cold, our heads and hands turn to what we'll need ourselves. The days are coming shorter now. Each sunset reminds us not to waste time.



Wintertime is make and mend. Long nights sitting by the fire, with our hands busy and our hearts full of songs. The Gaffer can still work wicker into baskets, though it hurts me to watch his bent fingers taking dents from the pressure of the work. He won't give it up though, not as long as he can see, and I suspect he won't give it up even when he can't. Daisy and May and Marigold, they spin and weave and dye, and stitch, and thank me for the help I gave them with the flax with a linsey-woolsey shirt for Yule.


Spring's the hardest time of year, the Gaffer says, and I know he means for his bones and his belly, with the ache of winter still bright and the pantry getting thin. He's in high fettle otherwise, starting the planting he's thought on for months, and fussing over us who're a-doing it.
Me, I love being up with the sun and seeing her home each night, and the good green smells in my nose. But sometimes when I fall bone-tired into bed I see that book Mr. Bilbo left me and wonder if somehow I'll forget how to read.