I never meant for my blog to become one of the chores I “have” to do, and so it has been languishing unattended and unposted for over a week now. I was shocked when I saw how long it has been since I sat down and wrote something.
To add irony to this, I got an email from Nablopomo inviting me to join them in their June challenge to post every day. I believe that they said the theme was to be on “Home”. Geez, that’s all this blog is about, my home and what makes it a home for me, Jim, Ruby and Smokey. I read the invitation, and thought, “Don’t any of these people have gardens?” Well, I suppose that some bloggers live in the southern hemisphere and so the busy planting season for them is in the future about 4 or 5 months.
My “to do” list has gotten out of hand. Of course there is always laundry to do, since I continue to be busy with my massage business. That has consumed some extra energy this month since I have been revising my schedule from “Monday to Friday” hours to “Tuesday to Saturday.” This involved three weeks of working “Monday to Saturday” as I made the switch.
I sometimes beat myself up about how long the list has gotten, but then I sit back, take a deep breath and acknowledge that my “already did” list is pretty long. Of course, some of the “A-D” list is now creating entries on the “T-D” list, but let’s not go too far down that road.
I had lovely intentions of posting pictures from the rest of my vacation (remember that? I went on vacation and came home to spring planting season in full swing), but I haven’t had time to really crop and make the best pictures ready for publication. I have been able to work on a few of the ongoing small batches of photos I took around this place, and then post them. But I got several ready and then didn’t post them, for whatever reason.
For example, there were several entries in the mandala series that didn’t get put up. There is a double clematis blooming down the street from here that compelled me to bring my camera along with me one evening when I took Ruby for her walk. (By the way, she KNOWS when the walk is supposed to happen, believe me!) I MUST have this flower.
Then there was a comment I made a while back over at May Dreams Gardens about how I would have to publish some of the rock faces that exist in my gardens. But I never got around to that either, even though I took the photos and processed them.
The last photo is of a rock I picked up on the Niangua River three weeks ago when Jeri and I were floating. Since then, Jim and I have floated on the Gasconade River, over the Memorial Day weekend. The rivers are just full of water this year, due to all the rain we have been blessed with. I say blessed advisedly, as the blessed rain has put a big item on our “to do” list around here, and that is mowing the lawn. If our benighted city fathers would allow it, I would acquire a couple of lambs to eat my grass, but I can’t even have chickens. It is a scandal, considering the high price of eggs.
Anyway, this is what the lawn looks like five days after was last mowed, when it was in the process of receiving the latest shearing. We have almost two acres of this, and we are not allowed to let it get taller than 8″ or we risk a fine courtesy of the aforementioned city fathers. Notice the length of the unmowed portion in comparison with the mowed portion.
Now, that is not the only thing that is on the list, by any stretch of the imagination. There is plenty of weeding to do. All the rain we have been getting has encouraged the plantain, crab grass, and other weeds to numerous to mention to go absolutely berserk. Every new section of garden is liberally adorned with all of the above. I have been working very hard to keep that all under control while also keeping the vegetable garden as weed free as possible. It has been my experience that carrots do much better if they don’t have to compete, and the crab grass is a fierce competitor. I pulled one little guy out of the carrot bed that had only two leaves each about 1cm long and a root that was 8 cm long sustaining them.
Needless to say, while I am out doing all this boring weeding, Ruby thinks that one of the items that ought to be on the list and isn’t on there nearly often enough is hurling the ball across the yard. Look at that face! “I’m wa-a-a-iting!”
It finally got warm enough for us to move all the house plants outside. The place looks great with all the peace lilies and other potted plants scattered around. Here is the view from my back door.
Way in the far background of this photo you can see another item on the list of the “yet to be done.” That would be the as-yet unfinished rain garden. I simply have not had time to get to the digging that forming that bowl will entail. It took me quite a while to figure out the proper configuration of the rocks that will be gracing the area. We have been calling them “The Dragon’s Teeth.” Until I knew how they related to each other and the space, there wasn’t much point in digging out there. So the shrubs that go around there are still unplanted too.
Besides, I had the rest of the vegetable garden to tend to. I finally got the beans, squash, corn, cucumbers, and melons planted the other day. I went out to get my cobra head tool so I could plant the “Pass-along” sedums I received from my friend Jocelyn today, and wound up transplanting a bunch of Thai purple basil amidst the cucurbits so that they will receive the benefit of the companion planting that protects against squash vine borers.
This kind of distraction is the story of my life, actually.
You would be so proud of me! I got distracted while I was putting away all the dragons that travel to the tornado shelter with us when there is a storm, and actually dusted the living room.
Meanwhile, the place is looking absolutely spectacular. This is the front of the house from across the street:
Closer up, it looks like this:
The globe alliums are winding up for their big finale. To me, they look a lot like fireworks rising above the other perennials.
The wild flower strip is stunning right now. In addition to the flowers you see in this picture, there are wild flags (both blue and bronze), Missouri evening primroses, St. John’s wort, and Deptford pinks blooming as well. The Mexican hat is just getting ready for bloom, and the wild sunflower has been added to the “to do” list under the category “Get that pest out of there”. It is rapidly taking over the whole area and crowding out the less pushy members of the wild garden.
Well, dinner is ready, so I guess I’ll quit for now and go help consume the wonderful salad that I picked earlier this afternoon out of the salad patch. Jim has sauteed chicken with garlic and onions and cooked some bow tie pasta to go with the greens, peas and asparagus. Fresh blue cheese dressing is waiting to grace it.
Catch you all later.
I love the rock faces! that second one is just so gnarly and characterful.
And I can’t understand why you’re not allowed to have chickens and a couple of lambs? I mean, if you could make sure they didn’t cause a nuisance to anyone else, what could be the harm? Other people’s dogs are likely to make just as much noise and foul the streets…
Not surprised that you don’t find time to write daily. That’s quite a spread of space there to look after. I also started with the intention of giving some time each day to my own blog, but even my relatively smaller area to care for, there are always things waiting to be done.
Good job though, how boring it would be without having something waiting in the wings. If the weather finally improves in our part of England, maybe then I can even get time to catch up on the news papers.
Beryl
Local city ordinances in the USA are rarely based on logic. Our Fair City has an ordinance prohibiting having any farm animal within the city limits, period. It specifically mentions all animals you could conceivably farm just so that you can’t weasel around it. Why? I don’t know.
Other people’s dogs certainly make more noise! On any given evening you can walk outside and hear several barking away, ignored by their owners. Oooh! I could write a post about that!
Good gracious, it’s a good thing you enjoy gardening, or that would be a whole lot of work!
My dad would dearly love to have chickens too, but his patch of suburbia doesn’t allow them either. He even asked if he could have a “companion chicken” like people have seeing-eye dogs, but that didn’t fly 🙂
I know how tiring it is. Only a few days ago I completed a very intense contract that didn’t allow me to blog much in terms of frequency lately. Now that the contract is complete and my “real” workload is lower, there is so much to be done around here outdoors. I’d much rather be outdoors than on the computer anyway, but I’m sure some people must wonder where I am 🙂
I’m not fussing over it though … maybe with fewer posts, others may head outside too!
Diane