Ow.

I feel like I've got a broomstick up my *ss, all the way to my navel.

Just to be right frank about it.

Ooomg...we worked hard in the yard this weekend.  Dug.  Tilled.  Wheelbarrowed.  Moved bricks. 

It still looks a little Sanford & Son-ish around here, but it's getting better.

Ahhh, listen to that rain....

It quit raining for a while yesterday, and it wasn't raining this morning when I got up.  I poured a cup of coffee and took it for a stroll around the yard, to see what the news was gwanna be, as Brer Fox once said.  ;)

The grandkid bed is up.  I pulled back the screen wire and found lettuce, sprouting, but still a bit sparse.  Beets, thicker than cathair in places.  (I ruthlessly pulled up some of the beets to give the others some elbow room.)  Moderate sprouting of kale and spinach.  Some of the bare root hosta is looking good, starting to straighten up and soak up some green.  The ferns haven't sent up fronds, yet.  I hope this doesn't mean they're dead.  The area where I strewed cornflower and larkspur seeds has little stuff coming up all over the place, but it's too little to tell what it is, could be weeds.  Or phlox that survived the burning.

After the walk-about, I went to town and bought dirt and plants and groceries.  The nicest thing happened when I was buying the dirt - five big bags - at the local dollar store.  I'd parked the truck near the stacks of dirt in the store parking lot.  In the store, I grabbed a cart and got some things we needed for the house, then when I got to the cash register, I paid for that stuff, completely forgetting that I wanted dirt.  But I remembered it about the time I zipped my card, and I asked the cashier to ring up five bags of dirt for me.  I figured this would irk the people in line behind me, and I apologized to them for holding them up.  And when I looked at the faces in line, the one directly behind me was Mr. Pete, a guy who lives up the road from us.  I said, "Hey, Mr. Pete," and paid for my dirt.  While I was punching buttons, the cashier asked me if I needed help getting the dirt.  I said, "Nah, I got it."  She just kept on about how heavy it was, etc., and I kept declining the whole time I was walking out the door.  I got in the truck and backed it a little closer to the dirt, and when I got out of the truck, there was Mr. Pete, insisting on helping me load the dirt.  I told him I'd make The Husband unload it.  He said, "'ere ya go."

After I put up my groceries, I put on my gloves and went outside.  Filled up the big concrete basket on the porch with lavender viola and dusty miller.  Dragged a cement planter out of the bushes and put the same viola and dusty miller in it, and set it by the new fountain.  Dumped the rest of the bag of garden soil in the bucket of an old rusty wheelbarrow, and used up the rest of the viola and dusty miller, and stuck some snapdragons in with it.  Maybe all that stuff in planters will survive for as long as Mother Nature keeps it watered.

I put together one more 4 x 4 raised bed frame, and put dirt in it, and planted brussels sprouts and lettuce in it.  Way more than we need.  The Husband said, "Oh, goody...brussels sprouts."*  I hope every one of the plants lives and makes a giant stalk of sprouts, and we have so many sprouts I'll have to freeze them so that I can cook them at least once a week, all year long.

About the time I got the last lettuce plant in the ground, it started to rain again.  The Husband and the Elder Son were putting up a CB antenna.  No shit.  They were toting this giant metal pole, and this long, whip-like antenna, and were looking for a place to drive the big pole into the ground and secure it to the house with clamps.  They were just all up in the beds around the house, going, ,"Naw, nope...."  Evidently, they did not find an adequate spot, for the next thing I knew, they'd dropped the big metal pole in the yard and were lashing the antenna to the frame of the swing out in the yard.  They ran a cord across the yard (on the ground) to the back porch, where my husband has set up his "base station."  He's out there on the back porch now, listening to it squawk.

Did you know they say the "f-word" on CB radios these days?

Wench

Mother Nature is an evil, duplicitous wench.  She flirts with spring just enough to entice me to put away my yarn and thread and fabric and such and reach for the gardening tools.  She lets me start outdoor projects, then she drives me inside with relentless rain.

The raised bed that the grandchildren planted would probably be empty, its soil and seeds having washed away in the deluge, except that I put a mesh screen over it and anchored the ends with unopened bags of garden soil.

Thank goodness I got that trailer-load of metal stuff hauled off before the yard turned into cake batter (we have a mole problem, as well).

And, let me tell you, that hauling job was no piece of cake.

The Husband and I hitched the junk-filled trailer to my Jeep on Sunday evening so I could take it to be recycled on Monday morning before work.  Monday morning, I checked a web site and discovered that the recycling place I intended to visit was not open on Monday.  I looked up another place not far away, got their phone number, and called them.  No answer.  But I figured, "Hey, it's a recycling place, and they are probably outside recycling."  So I hopped in the Jeep and drove over there.  The place was empty.  Gone.  And there I was with a trailer-load of junk attached to my Jeep, and time running out.

I came back home to un-ass the trailer so I could go to work without taking it with me.  When I finally got the hitch mechanism to turn loose of the ball, the tongue dropped onto my right foot.  Yeah, it hurt.  I couldn't check on my foot right away, because the trailer started rolling backwards.  Fortunately, I had not unhooked the chains, and they caught it.  Had to scotch the trailer and back the Jeep up to get enough slack to get the chains off.  Got to work 30 minutes late.

The next day, I re-hitched the trailer and got it to the recycling dump without incident.  Then I had to get the heavy sh*t off the trailer.  By myself.  When The Husband got home, we managed to get the trailer back in its resting place before the rain set in.

And it has rained ever since.  Eight inches in two days, and more on the way.

Time to drag out the yarn again.

Oh, and my foot is ok.

Yard Work, Part 2

Ohhhh, Reader, did we accomplish some stuff in the yard last weekend.

About the time The Husband swallowed his last bite of breakfast, I informed him of my plans to steal his truck and take it to the big hardware/lumber/gardening store.  I knew he'd want to go, if for no other reason than to talk some sense into me about all the crazy ideas that would pop into my head in the store.  He had been officially put on notice not to settle down with the remote.

My Plan:  buy heavy concrete things and transport them from the truck to their intended resting places, then tackle the rest of the yard.  The problem: we are old and decrepit and shouldn't be toting heavy things, the two-wheeled dolly has two flat tires, and the wheel barrow has a broken handle.

The Husband's Plan:  fix the wheel barrow.

His Plan seemed solid to me, since it would advance My Plan to transform the yard into something worthy of a Southern Living cover photo by nightfall.

As usual, I forgot half the stuff on my list when we went to the store, which probably was a good thing for our checking account, since The Husband had a list of his own.  On his list was two new handles for the wheelbarrow.  He bought sturdy metal ones with pre-drilled holes.

We came home from the store, ate a bite of lunch, then went outside and got to work.  The heavy concrete things - a new fountain (it's very cute, two little kids kissing under an umbrella) and some large concrete pavers - had to wait until the wheel barrow was back in working order.  The Husband got right to work on that while I unloaded the water hoses, hooked them up, rolled them onto the wheel cart, took the old ones to the garbage, etc.   When I'd unloaded and put away the last thing that didn't require a wheel barrow to move it, I stepped around back to see how the Husband's project was coming.  The wheel barrow was disassembled on the patio table.  I moved on to other things.  Did some raking and some ivy-pulling.  Tightened the center connection on the arch (now lavender, you might remember).  I was hanging a big sunflower wreath on the arch when The Husband came to ask for my help with the wheelbarrow.

It turned out that the pre-drilled holes on the wheelbarrow handles did not fit the pre-drilled holes on the wheelbarrow, no matter how much we pulled and pushed and grunted.  The Husband had to drill new holes, which required a trip across the road to Pop-Pop's shop to use the drill press.  He drilled excellent holes.  When he got back with the handles, we shot the bolts right through the holes and the nuts screwed on just right.  We latched them down tight before realizing that we should have put on the front legs/brace before we put on the nuts.  Well, the nuts would not come off the bolts.  The bolt heads were round and would not be held still by a wrench or pliers; when we tried to take the nuts off, the whole bolts would just spin.  This situation necessitated a trip to the hardware store, where I bought two vise grips (hoping to somehow hold the bolts still with them), and new nuts/bolts in case we had to cut the old ones out.  Thankfully, the vise grips worked.  Heaven only knows how we would have cut those bolts out had it been necessary.  It would probably have involved a Dremel and would have resulted in some unplanned holes in the wheelbarrow.

Anyway, it was late in the afternoon by the time we unloaded the concrete.  It took us another hour to get the fountain level so that the water would flow evenly over the sweet little umbrella (and it has since settled and needs to be re-leveled).  We managed to move a heavy concrete statue - one that I already had, which had spent most of its life face-down in the dirt - before calling it a night.  Between us, we had about 19 smashed fingers after dealing with all that concrete.

Overall, I am fairly pleased with the progress we made.  Some things got accomplished that I could not have accomplished by myself.  I still have some time to do the other things before the magazine photographer arrives.  ;)

* * * * * * * *

Well, I wrote that perky little post about 9 this morning, before I put on my gardening gloves.  Here we are 12 hours later, and I am miserably stiff after having sat down to watch the final episode of Downton Abbey.  It was the first time I'd sat down for more than a minute all day.

Today, we put a serious dent in the clean-up work that needed to be done around here.

A number of years ago, we built a "utility fence," a place to hide unsightly necessities.  It wound up being a catch-all for junk.  I planted a sweet autumn clematis on the fence to help hide the mess.  Recently, the whole fence collapsed, revealing our junk in all its glory.  Something had to be done.

Observe the junk-filled trailer now hitched to my Jeep.  It holds a flat yard sweeper (tree fell on it), three rusted bicycles, a metal mesh wagon with rotted tires and a bent tongue, and sundry other metal items.  I'm taking them to be recycled in the morning.

We lopped limbs, raked leaves and sticks and sweet gum balls, battled wild rose bushes, hacked ivy.

We've a ways to go, but the place is beginning to look presentable.

Yard Work

Ok, the sprucing-up of the yard has begun.  I feel right accomplished.

This week, I have cut the dead rose bush off the wrought-iron arch, raked the leaves out of the fern bed, painted the arch, painted the kids' rocking chair, planted hosta, lilies, ferns, daylilies, larkspur seeds, and hollyhocks.  Most of the stuff I planted came from the garden department at the get-it-all store - you know what I'm talking about, those green bags with two or three roots or bulbs, some viable, some duds.  I feel pretty good about this batch; everything still seemed to have a little life left in it, so maybe it will grow.

I painted my arch lavender.  It had a certain je ne sais quois in its rusted state, but if it had gone much longer without a new coat of paint, it probably would have crumbled.  Not sure about the lavender, though.  May have to change that.

The headless cherub fountain in the fern bed fell over last summer, and I left it where it fell until today.  Dug it out, and discovered that the middle bowl had shattered to smithereens when it toppled.  The headless cherub is now wingless, as well.  Looks like time to retire the cherub fountain.  I went fountain shopping this afternoon to see what is out there.  Might go get one tomorrow, while The Husband's truck is home.

Oh, and I planted grass seeds, too.  Correction:  I scattered grass seeds over bare ground and then walked on them to smush them in.  Might work, if the birds don't eat up all the seeds.

Gardening 2016

A welcome alignment of the stars brought me dirt, grandchildren, and seeds, all at once last weekend.  I put them all to good use in the raised bed frame that my sister gave me last year.   Yes, I know it's just the end of February, and there's probably more cold weather to come, but we planted lettuce, beets, spinach, and kale, all of which should survive modest cold.  (I have thick clear plastic in the event of a serious freeze.)  Hence the 2016 gardening season is under way.  The kids got a kick out of playing in the dirt, and I got a kick out of letting them do it.

We played outside almost all day Saturday.  They fight less when you let them romp, or maybe they fight the same and I just don't hear it.  In any case, in this age of electronic entertainment that requires virtually  no body movement, I figure they needed the exercise.  The oldest two helped The Grandfather shoot a long bow, while the 5-year old gathered acorns, which she piled on the end of the slide on the swingset and then proceeded to cover them with sticks "to keep them warm so they'll hatch."  The 20-month old granddaughter must have gone down the slide on the swingset a hundred times and didn't even cry when she face-planted in the dirt at the end a couple of times.  One of those times was just after the 5-year-old had made her acorn nest at the end of the slid.  This turn down the slide did not go well for either kid.  We managed to salvage and rebuild the acorn nest in a safer location.

The baby got a little cranky come nightfall.  We fed her and sent her home with her parents.  ;)  The other three stayed the night.

I just knew the older ones would conk out the minute they got still, but these rascally young'uns kept me up late Saturday night and got me up early Sunday morning, to boot.  I heard racket at 5:30 and went in the living room to find the two oldest ones exclaiming over a video about how to make jello in a soda bottle, while the 5-year-old sat wrapped in a blanket on the couch, quietly sucking her thumb, twisting her hair, and staring into space.  Clearly, being up at 5:30 wasn't her idea.  As the sun was coming up, I started making the biscuits, at which time she snatched her thumb out of her mouth and sprang into action.  She loves biscuit dough.  Not biscuits, biscuit dough.  I let her pat it out, roll it out, cut 'em out, and pitch 'em in the pan.  Lord only knows if she'd washed her hands since planting her beet seeds, but I figured 450 degrees ought to kill any germs on whatever dirt found its way into the biscuits.

After breakfast, they all went outside again.  For weeks, they have been begging to explore the woods behind our house.  It's usually muddy down there, and I won't let them go, but that day I did, even though it was still muddy.  The creek behind our house had just enough water in it to make jumping over it an adventure but not enough to drown the big ones.  They came back scratched and bleeding and muddy.  They had enough fun that everybody's clothes and shoes had to be shucked in the laundry room and sent to the washing machine.

While The Grands were exploring, I worked in the yard, picking up sticks, raking leaves, pulling ivy from places where it didn't belong.  I haven't done serious yard maintenance in many moons, and this place is out of control.  One of the flower beds was so grassy that I just set fire to it.  Literally.  It was matted with ivy and leaves, which produced a good, slow burn.  I doubt it killed the ivy all the way dead, and I doubt that I pulled anything close to all of it up, so I expect the fight to continue, but I put a serious hurt on it.  I even uncovered the cool faux stone sphere fountain that the ivy had eaten.  It'll probably need a new pump.

Since my yard needs so much attention, I have decided to cut down on the size of my vegetable garden.  In fact, I might not have one at all, except for the raised beds.  I ordered two more 4 x 4 beds to go with the two that my sister gave me.  I don't know, yet, where I'm going to put them, but I'll think of something.  A few tomato plants, a couple of squash, a few herbs...you get it.  Just a little kitchen garden, one that I can step outside and tend, one that won't require power equipment.

The power equipment I'm saving for the yard.    

We built a back porch onto the house this year.  Built it right over the existing patio.  It is screened to keep the mosquitoes out.  It is magnificent.  The carpenters trampled the flower beds all the way around the house, as we had a new roof installed, too.  I'm anxious to see what perennials survived the assault.  The buttercups around the patio made it, as did some of the iris.  It's too early to tell about the bee balm and phlox.  Frankly, I hope some of the phlox didn't survive, for they had taken over the place.

So, the to-do list:

1.  Work on the beds around the porch.  Need hosta.

2.  Work on the big burned bed.  It is a blank canvas.  I've already sprinkled some larkspur and cornflower seeds out there.  Need daylilies, and bee balm.

3.  Work on the beds in front of the house.  They are a disaster.

* * * * * * Addendum * * * * * * *

I just got back from Nanny's.  Went down there for two reasons:  (1) she wanted to show me the quilt she'd just finished; and (2) I wanted to bring the little red tiller to my house to have it ready for when the mood strikes me to use it.  The quilt is lovely.  The tiller is missing.  I have put out a family APB on the tiller.  I sure hope one of them has it!  If not, it's going to be the stolen lawnmower story (which I will tell you if you want to hear it) all over again.