Hard Hearted Hannah

In Search of a Wisewoman

Hard hearted Hannah is a term that came from the 1924 Tin Pan Alley jazz standard to describe a heartless, sadistic femme fatale who delights in making men suffer. It then became an idiom for an unfeeling, cynical, unyielding or cold woman. To be hard hearted is to be lacking in mercy, and incapable of pity. Ever wonder about the Hannah’s origin stories to make them thus behave?

Gardening in drought conditions is not only turning the earth hard but it requires making hard decisions about one’s investment in plants, one’s labour of love to create a mini Eden when they butt up hard against the cost of metered water and city restrictions. Even knowing grass will go dormant and revive when rain finally happens, it is heart-breaking to hear it crunch while being walked on. Add to this my on-going battle with urban deer who have made free with dining on all the things I most like, particularly my roses and green beans. War was declared and any desired vegetation now is imprisoned behind a forest of chicken and stucco wire impaled with rebar. Having to parcel out precious water requires one to turn into a Hard Hearted Hannah, and turn off one’s feelings about letting parts of the plot parch and die.

I turn into a harpie when the urban deer appear as I go flying off the doorstep to send them packing. Last thing last evening, I flushed and refilled the little cement birdbath a critical destination for my feathered friends. While having my morning coffee I saw a deer at the birdbath. When I went out to shift the hose for my few desperate hours I am allowed to water, I saw the bath was bony. Sigh… I lack the total “polar bear’s pajamas” of the song. There is now a large bucket of water set out by the birdbath, a double-edged sword, it took no time for the deer to find it and then want to dine on every accessible plant. This Hearted Hannah isn’t a completely leather hearted.