By LYNNE IRONS

Taking the bad with the good is the nature of life. I was enjoying my morning tea in the garden while watching robins. Suddenly I realized they were unearthing my newly planted and mulched cucumbers in their search for worms. Every one had to be replanted. Why can’t they eat the Colorado potato beetles that have already begun their assault on my eggplants?

I have been eating a couple of handfuls of strawberries every day. Because I haven’t been watering them this spring as much as I would like, they are smaller than expected. This fact has made them incredibly sweet. I know that commercial growers will beef them up with lots of water toward the end so they will weigh more for marketing. Hence, a store-bought strawberry rarely tastes the same. I remember picking wild strawberries with my grandma Kate. They were tiny — not much bigger than peas, but I still remember the sweetness.

My friend Sharlee mentioned that she has already frozen a gallon of strawberries. She had put a number of last season’s runners into her unheated hoop house last fall. She planted them directly into the ground. They froze in there last winter, as could be expected. Then, this spring, the layer of plastic pushed them a full month ahead. I remember her saying they were blooming when my outdoor ones were barely greening up. We talked about placing some pots or flats of good soil on the edge of the strawberry bed to capture the runners on their way out. That way they would plant themselves and could be moved into the greenhouse in mid-October.

Marie and I planted an untold number of winter squash seedlings last Saturday. We hauled dirt around and have them thankfully mulched with hay. We worked like dogs (Is that true? My dog sleeps and eats. He can’t be bothered to get up when strangers come over. He barks from bed). Where was I? Oh yes, we worked all day on Saturday. Sunday morning I literally had to roll out of bed. It took some time to see if any of my body parts could move.

There is a wonderful rose climbing the porch of the house at the bottom of the Edgartown Road. It is in full and glorious bloom. The remarkable thing is that it is positioned behind a large evergreen. It can’t get more than five or six hours of sun, but seems to thrive. Good to know. Perhaps full sun is overrated. I know I like shade as much as possible.

I ate my first peas this week. I don’t ever remember eating them over the Memorial Day weekend. It is usually well into June. I actually have no comment about it, but am simply stating a noticeable fact!

Everybody has been busy beautifying their places of business. Both Alison Shaw and Dragonfly galleries have done a nice job considering they are working with parking lots and gravel.

I must be tired and/or overworked, because I am feeling a tad critical. Rhododendrons are my least favorite shrub. There is a hot pink color of which I am not fond. They seem to be the ones that grow as big as a house. I like the small pale pink ones planted by Almeida Reid at the beginning of Northern Pines Road. She started them from seed in the 1960s.

My other pet peeve is unloved planters. I actually have to resist the temptation to jump out of the truck in traffic and place a shim under one. Maybe I have an overdeveloped sense of balance.

I have avoided mentioning the horrific oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, in part because I have yet to admit the magnitude. Last Monday’s hazy weather brought it home. The “fog” was smoke blowing in from a wildfire in Quebec. We are truly one big world. I could wax political about the hypocrisy of the Bobby Jindals; these are the people who push states’ rights, laissez-faire federal government, drill baby drill, less taxation etc. Then every time a disaster strikes their neck of the woods, they want federal aid. Oops! I wasn’t going to do that.

We are all at fault for the spill — it’s the story of our never-ending greed. I came across a quote from the much-ridiculed Jimmy Carter: “I’m asking you, for your good and for your nation’s security, to take no unnecessary trips, to use car pools or public transportation whenever you can, to park your car one extra day per week, to obey the speed limit, and to set your thermostats to save fuel. Every act of energy conservation like this is more than common sense. I tell you, it is an act of patriotism — the solution of our energy crisis can also help us to conquer the crisis of spirit in our country. It can rekindle our sense of unity — give our nation and all of us, individually, a new sense of purpose.