Weeding and Such

Last weekend, I was sitting at the kitchen table talking on the phone to Deb.  We were discussing compost piles, and since she is the older and wiser sister, I was enlisting her help in getting the compost pile here in shape.  Deb is an expert at outdoor gardening.  Indoors, not so much.

Over the past 20 years or so, Deb has tried to convince Kate and Em that I am the older sister.  She had some pretty confused girls at times when they would look at pictures when I was a baby and Deb wasn’t.  They are smart kids though, they figured it out.

Anyway ~

I had looked up on the inter-web on the ins and outs of composting, but my goodness, the sites I found made it sound like a huge scientific and mathematical endeavor.  What did all the pioneers do for centuries before Al Gore came along?  

Deb then asked me what I thought was a strange question “Do I have flowerbeds?”  Ah, yes, doesn’t most everybody have flowerbeds?  Couldn’t she tell from the pictures that I had sent?  And we were talking composting because...?

In fact, as I was talking to her, I was gazing out the window at the prolific field grass that is growing in the back beds.  Then it hit me.  The flowerbeds were all covered up with weeds!  She couldn't see the forest thru the trees - or in this case, the flowerbeds thru the field grass.

I guess I have been having too much fun washing dishes in the bathroom and picking slivers out of my hands from the plywood counters to be concerned with gardening.  

Really, there are a couple of legitimate excuses as to why I haven’t pulled the weeds.  1) It has been too blasted hot and B) I am of the firm belief that some ‘weeds’ bloom real pretty.  If I pulled them out before they had a chance to bloom, how’d I ever know?

Before

After

Since it had rained bears and mountain lions pretty much all day on Wednesday, yesterday I thought that cleaning up the weeds would be a good project to take my mind off of the second day of two days of self-imposed abstinence from all things sugary and tasty.  

I do set lofty, yet obtainable goals for myself.

And Mom was right when she said that pulling weeds was easier after rain.

Before

After

More work is certainly needed, but it's looking a whole lot better.  I am not likely to loose a small child or medium sized dog now.

Roxy even helped.

Randy took off in the tractor to fix the driveway that washes out when we get the heavy rain like we did on Wednesday.  In fact, he has been gone most of the afternoon.  Since the tractor doesn’t have a can holder, I am pretty positive that he has been truly working all this time.  That, and the fact that I brought Gatorade up to him a couple of times.  I wanted to make sure that the tractor wasn’t just running as a decoy and he and the neighbor were drinking beer in the garage. 

There seems to be a lily-like plant around these parts that seems to be very prolific.  It has a tall stalk and a pretty pink flower.  I have been forgetting to look them up, but I was in luck when I found a tag in the front flowerbeds for a 'Canna' in Shining Pink.  It seems that I have three of them.  Well, had three of them.  I accidentally pulled one out before I came across the tag.

But that’s two more than I thought I had!  And now I know what they are!

I didn’t know if Randy was either making an art of our driveway or had decided to spend the night out in the wild.  He came home right as I was looking for the sleeping bag and a pillow for him.

Have the BEST day ever!
~ Dorothy