Happy New Year, Twenty-Five

The old rabbit, Twenty-Four, stood by the bird feeders, patiently waiting for Twenty-Five to come up the street.

He wrapped his scarf around his neck and kept his umbrella open to shield himself from the rain. Nearby, birds slept in the shelter of a spruce tree.

Carefully shielding his notes from the rain, Twenty-Four reviewed them one last time. He wanted to remember what to tell Twenty-Five to give him a nice start like he’d had from Twenty-Three.

He began to reflect on his year.

He was proud of getting Carol to do more winter-sowing than in previous years, and with good results. He hoped Twenty-Five did even more winter-sowing. He expected Carol would insist on it.

He thought about how Carol also loved the full solar eclipse in April and was delighted to find another morel mushroom in her garden later that month.

Out in the vegetable garden, Twenty-Four thought things had gone fairly well, except the peas were a mildewed mess. He had marked all the beds so Twenty-Five could get Carol to plant the peas in another part of the garden in the spring in hopes of not having the same problem.

But he’d come through with the paw-paws and was sure he couldn’t be blamed for the raccoons eating most of them. Oh well, that would be Twenty-Five’s problem to solve now.

But Twenty-Four decided to take full credit for the long, slow, warm fall. And he was proud of the rainfall, which had come in almost exactly the same as the yearly average. He would pass along his notes about the weather to Twenty-Five because that was one of the hardest things to get right.

Carol had kept busy all.year too, noted Twenty-Four. She recorded a podcast episode every week with her friend Dee, except for the last two weeks of the year, but that was okay. Twenty-Four thought they deserved a break.

And there were the bi-weekly posts Carol wrote about Lost Ladies of Garden Writing. Twenty-Four was proud of helping Carol find some really interesting ones that almost no one had heard of. He was also going to take credit for Carol’s new weekly newsletter, launched in June, and encourage Twenty-Five to encourage Carol to continue it. And, of course, he was proud of Carol for keeping her blog going, too, especially for Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day.

But Twenty-Four was not taking the blame for Carol not publishing another book! Twenty-Two and Twenty-Three had also skipped out on the books. He made a note to make sure Twenty-Five knew this in case he wanted to push Carol a bit more to write another book than he or the past two years had.

As he continued to review his notes, Twenty-Four heard a nearby clock begin to sound the chimes for midnight. His time was up!

He scribbled one last note about the poinsettia Twenty-Three left for him to get to rebloom and how it would be up to Twenty-Five to get it through another summer and fall to possibly rebloom yet again. Then he quickly gathered his notes and umbrella and waited for Twenty-Five to come around the corner. He knew from his own New Year’s Eve last year that the hand-off would be quick.

Just then Twenty-Five came running up to the birdfeeders, full of energy, and as Twenty-Four suspected, also full of his own ideas. After a quick greeting, Twenty-Four handed his notes off to Twenty-Five, warned him about Carol’s new gardening motto for 2025, and advised him to get some rest. He suspected it was going to be a busy year!

Then Twenty-Four headed off into the past.

Eager to get started, Twenty-Five took a quick look around, nodded to the sleeping birds in the nearby spruce, shoved Twenty-Four’s notes into his pocket, and headed off to explore the garden. He was going to make it a big year in Carol’s garden!

And as he entered the garden, he shouted to all the garden fairies, “Happy New Year!”

Then he got straight to work…