Library Happenings

Henning School

Oh how I love to garden.  

The first week in January I drove out to our property and looked to see what shape the garden was in.  As soon as we turn the corner into the new year, I am already thinking of how to make the garden better. I slowed down as I came up to the garden and even with the high fence around it and the gate closed, I see that the “bad bunny” is sitting right in the middle of the garden like a statue. This bunny is somehow making his way into our garden even though we have checked all the fence lines. We have decided that he must be coming in through the barn wall area.  

Of course my granddaughter reminds me that this bunny isn’t “bad, he just is hungry.” We are now using code language to discuss this bunny and what we are going to do about him.  

Of course, it won’t take long for her to figure out our code, but hopefully we have it fixed before she does. We always say at the end of each season that we are going to cut back on the number of plants we put in, but as soon as that fresh spring air hits, our brains turn a little goofy and we end up planting just as much as we did the season before, even though we keep track of it in our garden journal. 

We have just finished eating all of our pickles from the canning we did in 2020 and we have two jars of salsa left from last year. We will be trying to grow our cucumbers up our tall fence this year, to try something new and less invasive. We have learned many things since we put the garden in several years ago and we look forward to learning many more, the first of which is how to get the ‘bad bunny’ a new home.

Our featured book is titled “A Seed Is Sleepy by Dianna Hutts Aston and Sylvia Long.” This beautifully illustrated book tells a wonderful story of a little seed that is laying asleep until just the right conditions apply for it to take root. This could take a year or even ten!  Of the plants on Earth, 90 percent of them are flowering, which means they produce fruit of all textures and shapes that are home to the seeds until just the right conditions take place to allow them to grow.  

We learn in this book that a gymnosperm is a seed that isn’t clothed in fruit. For example, the redwood tree cone houses the seed that will fall off and become a giant redwood.  

Although only 10 percent of the redwoods begin this way, most come from existing trees. Seeds can do the strangest things when they are looking for a place to grow. The wind might carry them, they might get stuck on a piece of child’s clothing to fall off elsewhere, they could be in the belly of a bear and get deposited farther down the trail. As long as it lands where there is plenty of soil, water, and sunlight, a seed has a good chance to grow. 

Henning Library hours are Tuesday and Thursday afternoons from 3:30-5:30 p.m. following the school calendar.  We will have the coffee hot and waiting for you.