The Crabby Office Lady

Blame it on springtime: Crabby is in a particularly good mood this week. She's written a poem about using Office to help you with those garden chores. Grab your gloves, your spade, and your hat, and let's go.

When spring has sprung and you've finally flung
All your sweaters and boots into storage,
When the sight of new peas makes you fall to your knees
To plant carrots and cabbage and borage,

It's that time of year to get out the gear
Grab your shovel and pruner and spade,
Get the digger, the feeder, the hose, and the weeder —
There's really no time for delay.

How do you track what to prune and what to hack
All those schedules for watering and feeding?
With Excel as your aide, you relax in the shade.
(It does everything but the weeding.)

Yes that's right, yes you heard me, I said it out loud:
Think of Excel as your own garden gnome,
Make your lists and cross-reference perennials of preference:
Get a spreadsheet to help you at home.

Let's say you just started, you haven't yet charted
How to lay out your veggies and herbs,
The ground is waiting, just anticipating
To be tilled, and turned, and disturbed.

A bare patch of soil invites so much toil,
Why not make it easy to do?
Let Visio take a shot and diagram your garden plot
And hey, it's customizable, too.

Who'll help you i.d. those mysterious plants
That showed up one day and just stayed?
Acer plamatum, Eupatorium maculatum
(Plain old maples and joe pyeweed I say!)

You know those scribbled notes on small scraps of paper
Listing nurseries and experts you've known?
Green-thumbed women and men, never lose them again:
With Outlook you're never alone.

When all is in bloom and there ain't no more room
For a bulb or a weed or a seedling,
Share your joy and your pride with your friends far and wide,
Online photos are what you'll be needing.

FrontPage is a gardener's sweet dream come true
With its photo gallery easy and quick,
Upload (or just scan) your photos, and man,
Your friends will think you are so slick.

The moss in your hair and that deck chair out there
Make me think that it's time for a party,
So grill up a steak and let Publisher make
Invitations creative and arty.

With Office XP you're as ready as can be
When the vines start their climbing and twining,
'Round your heart they wind, and with Office you'll find
The toughest garden has a silver lining.

The sunshine is sunny and you've spent all your money
On tomato starts, basil, and thyme,
And speaking of time, I've run out of mine
So I'm about through with this rhyme.

"I have grown further and further from my muse, and closer and closer to my post-hole digger." — E.B. White

About the author

Annik Stahl, the Crabby Office Lady columnist, takes all of your complaints, compliments, and knee-jerk reactions to heart. Therefore, she graciously asks that you let her know whether this column was useful to you — or not — by entering your feedback using the Was this information helpful? tool below. And remember: If you don't vote, you can't complain.