Fred's winter song

"Fred," I said, "I see your garden's grown since I've been gone
You know, I left here in the springtime thinking you were planting mud?
Yeah, but you old men, you always think your own shit makes good manure
You call it 'compost' when you squat among the weeds in vacant lots"

"Well, where ya been this time?," he says
He says it every time
He likes to think that he is saying, "It could not have been that far"
Yeah, but when I tell him 'Iceland,' I caught him off his guard
Fred, he dreads the winter more than he looks forward to the spring

He burns a kerosene lamp inside an old ambulance
There's a dog he calls 'Trouble' sleeps in the middle of the road
But buried somewhere in his garden there's a vein of new potatoes
But will the birds forget to sing when I return here in the spring?
That's what I want to know
Even now the geese are flying mighty low
As I pack my bags to go
On one more tour

This is my winter song
I just thought it would be nice
If I wrote something
That would help break the ice