The sun is shining, the sky is blue... and the grass and weeds are thriving in the humid warmth of a very uncommon Pacific North West Spring. It must be gardening time.....darn it !!! My trowel, fork and weed plucker "thingy" have been resurrected out of the spider web infested gardening bucket where a colony of nasty crawly eight legged squatters have taken up residence. In the vegetable garden ( which once, not to long ago, served as a five star chicken residence), the sweet corn, beets, cucumber, melon, cantaloupe and some disagreeable squash plants are all either peeping up out of the very well fertilized ground or already starting to spread their tendrils across the garden. Sadly...the weeds, equally well nourished on healthy chicken by product are thriving and I'm trying to work out just how the weeds can be ten inches tall and my lovingly tended seedlings are only just appearing. Clearly, there is no justice.
As the days began to grow longer and the prospect of a night time freeze grew more remote, I started to propagate my Rose of Sharon cuttings. I watered those cuttings regularly, I fenced them off from the dogs, I checked their progress daily...and the greater majority of the spindly stems died. Today, as the sun was high in the sky and the thermometer rose, I went to work in the house garden. Several years ago, I coerced several visiting family members into my new project. I saw the pictures...I read the catalogue, I bought the 3 inch, leafless twigs. We shifted earth, we laid plastic, we transported stones one wheel barrow at a time we sweated blood for those twigs (thank you Annie and Pauline) and then just as I saw life... Doris the deer brought her extended family to feast on the moist green nearly leaves. I digress....the struggle for my Rose of Sharon shrub and my cuttings took on a new meaning today. As I went to work, the dandelion, chickweed and nettle were clearly struggling to compete with the thousands of Rose of Sharon seedlings that are obviously intent on taking over the world !! Decision time...tend to my struggling cuttings...or replant the millions of seedlings. Again...no justice !
While I have been busily occupied ( preoccupied ) with the state of the garden, Greg and Jim have been pro active with the flooding in our lower pasture. It would appear that an irrigation pipe was previously installed... it is still present, sadly, such pipe apparently ended abruptly causing water entering the pipe to leave said pipe with nowhere to go but right where it was at !! result...marshland. I hate the word "temporary"....temporary can mean 10 days ...or ten years ! Greg and assistant Jim went to work "temporarily" solving the problem and now I have a drainpipe log flume cascading down the hill. I hate drainpipes..I hate temporary.....am I being difficult ?
There are so many stories, so much transpiring, so little time. Over the past weeks I have re connected with former class mates at the boarding convent school that was my home for several years and have become more aware than ever that who we were is what we are but it is really up to us to utilize our past to form our present and our future. Thank you "my past" for the present that I love and the future that I embrace. Life is good.
Take care, kill those weeds, M
As the days began to grow longer and the prospect of a night time freeze grew more remote, I started to propagate my Rose of Sharon cuttings. I watered those cuttings regularly, I fenced them off from the dogs, I checked their progress daily...and the greater majority of the spindly stems died. Today, as the sun was high in the sky and the thermometer rose, I went to work in the house garden. Several years ago, I coerced several visiting family members into my new project. I saw the pictures...I read the catalogue, I bought the 3 inch, leafless twigs. We shifted earth, we laid plastic, we transported stones one wheel barrow at a time we sweated blood for those twigs (thank you Annie and Pauline) and then just as I saw life... Doris the deer brought her extended family to feast on the moist green nearly leaves. I digress....the struggle for my Rose of Sharon shrub and my cuttings took on a new meaning today. As I went to work, the dandelion, chickweed and nettle were clearly struggling to compete with the thousands of Rose of Sharon seedlings that are obviously intent on taking over the world !! Decision time...tend to my struggling cuttings...or replant the millions of seedlings. Again...no justice !
While I have been busily occupied ( preoccupied ) with the state of the garden, Greg and Jim have been pro active with the flooding in our lower pasture. It would appear that an irrigation pipe was previously installed... it is still present, sadly, such pipe apparently ended abruptly causing water entering the pipe to leave said pipe with nowhere to go but right where it was at !! result...marshland. I hate the word "temporary"....temporary can mean 10 days ...or ten years ! Greg and assistant Jim went to work "temporarily" solving the problem and now I have a drainpipe log flume cascading down the hill. I hate drainpipes..I hate temporary.....am I being difficult ?
There are so many stories, so much transpiring, so little time. Over the past weeks I have re connected with former class mates at the boarding convent school that was my home for several years and have become more aware than ever that who we were is what we are but it is really up to us to utilize our past to form our present and our future. Thank you "my past" for the present that I love and the future that I embrace. Life is good.
Take care, kill those weeds, M
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