Accomplishments

I am pleased.

In spite of myself, I actually managed to get quite a bit done this weekend. My neighbor built a trellis for my wisteria on Saturday and it made such a difference to the look of my front yard, that it inspired me to get in gear and get some stuff done.

So on Sunday I chopped all the dead heads off of the beautiful mums that I got (and didn't plant 3 weeks ago so all the flowers died) and since I didn't know where I wanted to put them in my English garden, I put them on the side of the house near the wisteria. That was a great idea, except that I forgot that the bed on that side is full of tulips in the spring. Surprise - planting 3 mums resulted in the uprooting of approximately 30 tulip bulbs which then needed to planted elsewhere. Sigh.





Well, since the bulbs were out and I had a fresh bed in the garden, I went ahead and tucked the tulips into the edging of the bed. Job well done. Since I was there, I figured I might as well lay down the new pieces of flagstone that were piled in the corner. And if I was going to do that I should lay down the weedguard first. Well, that was good. I stood about surveying the sideyard and realized that I really needed to get my fruit trees planted. So I dug a big hole and stuffed the apple tree into it. That was great, but I don't want the Virginia Creeper to strangle it, so I cut back all the running vines. Then I thought it would look much nicer if I pulled the weeds around it. So I sat down and managed to weed 3/4 of the entire garden until something crawled into my pants and bit me.

I jumped up and swatted at my waistband on my lower back, and then I felt something FALL INTO MY PANTS!!!! At which point I screamed and pulled my pants off and jumped around pantless in the garden, swiping at my rear end and shaking my pants out. After I determined that the attack was over and that there was no longer anything in my pants, I re-clothed myself and decided I was done sitting in the garden for the time being.

But the weather was SO fantastic (cool and overcast) that it seemed a shame to go back in. I picked up all my weeds and discarded plant pots and labels and soil bags and filled a whole trash can. Then I refilled my lettuce barrel with fresh soil to get ready for a fall crop planting. As I was walking back with my bucket I spied the pile o' rocks sitting in my grass and was struck with an idea for one of my garden beds. So I wheeled in a tipped over wine barrel (which I will half plant with hen and chicks next spring) and started hauling in buckets of rocks to fill around the plants in that bed. I killed a whole bunch of spiders and one centipede and two red ants that had taken up residence in my rock pile. I wasn't risking anything else crawling into my pants.





I finished the bed and was so pleased with the results! I was also pooped. Hauling buckets of rocks will take it out of you. So I called it a day, laid in the shower for awhile and then crawled into the recliner. Anthony will pull my garbage can around to the front of the house and dig the hole for my peach tree tomorrow.

I'd pat myself on the back if I could actually still move my arms.