🟩 A Relaxed Garden Life with My Wife Who Has Dementia 🍓 | The Day My Wife's Expression Softened at the Redness of a Strawberry

June, around the start of the rainy season

The first strawberry harvest I had been looking forward to.
And yet, it had been nibbled on.
But—that morning, we both laughed a lot.

I bought strawberry seedlings.

It said, "Produces large, sweet strawberries,"

so my expectations were high.

The seedlings grew rapidly, absorbing nutrients.
Runners appeared as they tried to propagate, so
I pinched them all off as instructed.
"Sorry, little strawberry."
Please hold off on propagating for now so you can focus on growing fruit.

White flowers bloom in clusters, and small fruits begin to form.
Huh? They're small.
But gradually, the white strawberries grow larger.

Every day, when my wife returns from day service, she gives me a strawberry report.
"They're turning red."
"Almost ready to eat."
"High expectations!"

Alright, today is the day for the harvest.
…or so I thought, but

Wait? There's a hole on the back side.

Bite marks.
A bird?
Would a bird really go out of its way to eat the back side?
Something like dried slime is glistening there.
When I looked it up, it seems to be a slug. Oh no...

Number one, taken down.
While I was smiling and watching it grow bigger,
a slug was eating it happily on the other side, I suppose.
I thought, "If I just cut off that part and wash it..." but
apparently there's a risk of parasites, so I had to give up with tears in my eyes.

I looked up how to repel them online.
It says, "If you surround them with copper tape, they won't get in."
I ordered it immediately. Mission accomplished.
Well, these things happen.

Hoping for fruit number two.
Saying things like, "Humans have wisdom, you know,"
I checked it, and...
"What the heck, it's been eaten again!"

Even though I made a barrier with copper tape

What a lie.
Do slugs these days jump over things?
When I said that to myself, my wife heard it and laughed out loud.
I see, is it because it's close to the ground?
I lifted the fruit up using a support stake.
Alright.

Hoping for fruit number three.
Once again, there's slime and a hole in it.

What?
Did it fly through the sky this time?
Did it climb all the way up here?

As I was grumbling, my wife laughed behind me.

If it comes to this, the next strawberry will be...
I feel like they're getting smaller little by little, but it's still better than nothing.
I harvested it early, before the slugs could get to it!

"See that? I won."

But, I wonder if I should have waited a little longer.
It withered quickly before it could turn bright red.

In the end, the strawberries were constantly delayed.
What I finally managed to harvest was a tiny, tiny strawberry.
When I showed the intact strawberry to my wife, she laughed out loud again.
My wife probably doesn't understand this situation now,
but it seems she understood that I finally harvested something.

When I put it in my wife's mouth,
she laughed.
I laughed, too.

…I still haven't... eaten any.
It's as if I offered them all to the slugs.
Listen well, you slugs who ate them!

How was it? "It must have been delicious!"

But well, that's fine.
Next year, I'll try my hand at 'stone wall strawberries'.
I hope the day comes when we can laugh together again at a height the slugs can't reach.

I couldn't eat the strawberries, but I got plenty of laughter.
See you again in the next 'H Garden | Days Facing My Wife with Dementia in the Garden'.

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📚 "H Garden | Days Facing My Wife's Dementia in the Garden"
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