Jarbidge to the Oregon Trail

I felt like I needed to shout that.

1. It has been unseasonably cold here. And wet, but that is normal.

2. The nice days we did have happened when I was in Nevada.

3. My garden should have had the decency to wait for me to get home but the weeds and flowers just kept on growing. In some cases, the weeds outpaced the flowers by several feet.

Case in point. My prayer garden.

You can see a smattering of blue forget-me-nots and pink bleeding hearts. It was a jungle.

The first thing I did this weekend was I bought two rolls of bamboo screen from Home Depot. For less than $48, I now have privacy in my prayer garden! I don’t have to worry about the neighbors coming out to work in their garden at the same time I am enjoying mine (except I will still be able to hear them).

I don’t know why I did not think of this sooner. Ever since the big tree fell and smashed the chain link, I have had to deal with the renters next door. Nice enough people, but she tends to like to garden in her bikini. I should be thankful she doesn’t garden in the nude: she’s around 55-65 years old age, 5’10” and weighs about 100 pounds. Not an obscene visual just a highly unnecessary one.

Now I don’t have to look. And on the flip side, she doesn’t have to look at me.

I wear clothes when I garden.

Thought I should point that out.

I digress.

I was up at 7:30 on Saturday, raring to go. I knew it would get warm and I wanted to get as much done in that little section of yard as possible before the sun was too high in the sky. I hauled all my tools, a large bottle of water, my knee pads and a wide-brimmed hat out with me. I even broke out a pair of jean cut-offs that are too obscene to wear in public but are perfect for a hot day in the garden.

I was done in by noon. I’d managed to clear out exactly one-fourth of the mess. It was disheartening.

I started in again when the sun sank low enough for the garden to be in the shade, around 6:30pm. By 8, I had slightly over one-third of the garden done. I’d filled the curb-side yard debris bin and had a couple piles of weeds building in the garden. I’d love to compost them and I probably will put some of them into the compost bin – but no seeds or woody stalks.

That’s what else I did on Saturday! I purchased a compost pile turner. Years ago when I bought my compost bin from the county, I thought I wouldn’t need the turner so I did not buy one. And I have regretted it ever since. I haven’t been able to use the compost bin to its fullest potential because I couldn’t turn the compost! Well, that’s all fixed now: the county offered the turners again and I happened to see the flyer and have $15 to spare at the same time. More on composting later – I have to re-situate the bin and sort through the weeds to toss into it so it will be a blog post in the future.

I went to bed early last night (OK, not real early: I stayed up to watch some episodes of “Finding Bigfoot” on Animal Planet’s website. My friend, Jodi, suggested I watch them. I’m glad she did! But more on Bigfoot later.)

Harvey and I slept like dogs (well, he is a dog) until 8:30 this morning. Round two began by 9AM. I was very thankful that I thought to soak the ground last night before I gave up entirely on weeding: this sudden dry and warm spell dried up the ground and weeding would have been next-to-impossible in dry soil today. As it was, the ground stayed damp enough and I cleared the final 2/3’s of the garden by 1:00. Today was cooler and cloudier or I’d have never made it that long.

You can see the ground!

You can see one stack of weeds to be composted sitting against the shed.

I can even find my pathway!

There’s still so much to do but I beat back the 3.5′ weeds in the worst-hit section of my yard and that makes me feel wonderful.

I also edged another flower bed and cleared out the grass from around my raspberry and from under my ceanothus (California Lilac).

Yes, I have the chair there for a reason: think dogs. Two Big Dogs.

Isn’t it pretty?

The chicken wire – not so much. That’s another project for this summer: get some lattice and cover up the space under the ramp to keep Harvey out. And kill the grass under there.

I’d like to kill the entire lawn.

I didn’t just work all weekend. I sat back and enjoyed my garden, too.

Bumblebees in the rhododendrons.

A plethora of peonies. I love my peonies.

Tomorrow is predicted to drop back down into the low seventies. The low seventies are warmer than it has been in months. If I feel up to it and the rain holds off, I have two-and-a half flower beds in the back yard that need my attention and all the bushes in the front yard.

But even if I don’t get to them, I am content that I got this one garden taken care of!

I feel GOOD (and SORE).