I had a tray of geranium seedlings on the balcony. Fourteen tiny plants that I had nurtured from the day I planted the seeds four weeks ago and watched closely with an almost-maternal pride as they sprouted new leaves and reached their slender arms up to the light.

This afternoon I stepped out onto the balcony and to my horror and dismay, every single one of the fourteen small, plastic pots was empty. Well, not empty, precisely, as they were still filled with potting soil, but all of my beloved seedlings were gone, plucked cleanly from their carefully climate-controlled homes. Who could have done such a thing?!

I was on the verge of despondence for a moment or two when I noticed one of my hapless small plants, then another, lying on the edge of the balcony, casually tossed there by whomever had assailed them. I began to look around, desperately, filled with a mad hope that I might find still more of my precious seedlings! I was beginning to think I had hoped in vain when I glanced over the balcony railing and saw a small tangle of green in the rain gutter, and I knew at once the culprit’s identity.

TAGE!

In recent weeks it has been a favorite activity of his to toss various and sundry items off the balcony. Dishtowels, the broom and dustpan, drinking glasses, Matchbox cars, rubber balls, hairbrushes … nothing is safe. Most everything he tosses ends up either in the rain gutter or in the bed of stinging nettles next to the house. It was nothing more than a wild stroke of luck that sent my baby plants into the gutter. If they’d gone into the nettles they’d have been lost forever.

Wonder of wonders, we managed to retrieve every last one of the fourteen small geraniums (and when I say “we,” I mean, of course, my heroic husband with arms just long enough to reach into the rain gutter if he lay flat on his stomach and squeezed said arms through the gap between the bottom of the railing and the balcony floor). Even more surprising, there appears so far to have been no casualties among them and all appear more or less happy (if only slightly bedraggled) in their new home, all together in a long planter box, far out of reach of marauding toddlers.