The Dysfunctional Gardner and The Famous Frog Farm

Here is my friend, Skippy Jon Jenn's flower. I have graced her with the screen name of "Skippy Jon Jenn" in honor of my favorite character "Skippy Jon Jones". This is a great honor, to be bestowed only upon someone worthy of such a title. Isn't it lovely?! The flower I mean. How come she can grow cool stuff like that?! I am still traumatized from trying to grow Sunflowers. One day I had budding artist Sunflowers, the next, they were beheaded. That fateful morning, I went out to admire them and all that was left was carnage. Yes, a terrorist had struck. Ok, it was a deer, but that's beside the point. It was very traumatic. There was a few that were just coming up. It gave me hope, but as soon as they had heads, they too were devoured. All that was left were stems. The stems grew and grew. It was like I was being haunted by Sunflower ghosts. oooohhhhhhhh........
These kinds of eerie things happen to me when I try to garden. As you may be aware, I am "garden challenged", or maybe a better title would be "a dysfunctional green thumb". Whatever you want to call it, this disability came upon me at an early age. I can still remember it as if it was yesterday. I told my grandma (who raised me) that I was going out to make a garden. She assigned me a spot in the yard. First, I dug all the grass out. Then I lined the area with bricks. Then I planted my first seeds. I was so excited! I waited.......
An unspecified amount of time later, I happened to check on my garden to discover it had become a pond! Yes, my garden was a pond. My grandma was a bit of a conniving woman at times. No, she didn't sabotage the garden. She had instructed (or maybe encouraged) one of my aunts to put in drainage pipes from our yard into the neighbors. Since we got a lot of run off from the other side, she figured that the neighbors trees could soak it up. It was done under the cover of night (or maybe during the week when they weren't there). Two small, inconspicuous, drains were buried under our drive way and opened at the fence line. Unfortunately, the neighbor discovered them and plugged them. With the not so secret drainage pipes plugged, the yard flooded again. Since my garden was lower than the grass line, it felt obligated to entertain the water.
I had no choice but to turn my garden into a "frog farm" much to my grandma's displeasure. Yes, I figured since I couldn't garden, I could farm frogs. I dug out the garden spot deeper. Then I added more water. Then I went down the road to a near by swamp and caught all the frogs I could find. I even added some tad pole larvae. I put up a sign that said "Famous Frog Farm". This success was short in nature. Due in part to my inability to control where the frogs hopped. Also, because the sun came out and dried up the water. One lone frog lived there. My grandma was convinced it would die if I didn't rescue it. With disgust, I captured the frog and returned it. My garden spot lay desolate. I was only to discover it would be the first in a string of failed gardening attempts.