It happens at various times of year, depending on where I’m living. In L.A., it’s now. Spring is revving its engine, and I am up to my elbows in bat poop.

Yes, seriously.

It started last week. The stars aligned, and the temperature rose. The rain stopped, and the voices started. It was the garden center. It talks to me. It lures me with its siren song, its bat-poop-fortified potting soil, its cedar mulch. That first Saturday of planting season is one the best days all year. Christmas is nice, sure. Easter, fine. Fourth of July – hey, I like fireworks as much as the next guy. But a trunk full of baby tomato plants, herb starters and a lilac bush is where its at for me.

I love filling the new pots with soil. I like breaking up root balls and spreading mulch. I like watering and pruning and sweeping up leaf litter. It’s the golden time, these few weeks. By the end of March I’ll be fighting a steel-cage match with the aphids over my dill plants. I’ll be cussing and spitting and throwing out the earth-friendly fungicides in favor of the skull-and-cross-bones variety when the powdery mildew overtakes my rose bushes.

I don’t make it easy on myself. I could plant mums or ferns or any number of disease and bug and blight-resistant plants. But not this trooper. I’ve got rose bushes with a compromised immune system, three orchids with a penchant for developing black spot despite having their own air-flow system and a lilac bush I just stuck in a pot. I’ve never seen anyone grow a lilac bush around here, and I’ve never seen anyone grow one in a pot anywhere. But by God, I like lilacs, and all I’ve got is a patio. So I shake my bat poop-covered fist in the face of convention. I shall not be defeated!

So until the problems start, until I develop an eye-twitch and start muttering to myself, I’m happy as a pig in mud...or heavily watered potting soil.