Today, I:
Planted a boatload of lavender. (I have one more day and I will be DONE this spring!)
Planted twelve echinacea plants in the cutting garden. Perennial.
Planted twelve coreopsis plants in the cutting garden. Perennial.
Weeded everywhere I walked. I learned this from a lavender grower I visited a couple of years ago: we walked and talked and he weeded every step of the way.
Made up two strawberry pots full of snapdragons and petunias, for the Grotto. No banana trees this year: I am going annuals and a few perennials.
I tore out almost all of the sedum in our front bed. I toted it (by lawn tractor) down to the creek bed, and tossed it into an erosion site. The lawn tractor then died on me (as it did two days ago), and so I left it and walked back to the house. Miraculously, a few hours later, it was back in the barn. Huh.
There is some backstory to this: two days ago, I filled the thing with gas, and proceeded out to the pasture to mow trails for that evening's Kite Flying and Happy Hour with my fellow lady friends of rural Kansas. The mower died after about 300 yards. (Three football fields). I left it out there. The next evening, that Spouse o' Mine ascertained that I had filled it not with gasoline, but with diesel. Hence, the inactivity. But, my disclaimer is this: someone neglected to label the red gasoline container as "DIESEL". We somehow have acquired a million red gasoline containers in our fourteen years here in rural Kansas. But we have never had a need for any diesel and so it never entered my mind that I should question, "I wonder if there be diesel in this red gas container??" But that Spouse o' Mine bought a legitimate, if small, tractor earlier this spring, and lo and behold, it runs on diesel.
Well. We both learned a valuable lesson this week.
OK, back to my glorious Saturday: I spent nearly all but one hour of this day outdoors. I enjoyed the blooming peonies, irises, salvia, the baby bluebirds, the orioles which are indeed stopping and eating the cherry jam I set out for them. We have hummingbirds just sitting around, surveying the space. And I loved our silly cat Sister Monica Joan who thought the tippy-top of our roof was THE PLACE to be this afternoon.
Sister Monica Joan (named for a nun in Call the Midwife) is a black-and-white kitty I got from the animal shelter last summer. I went there planning to spring the kitty who had been in there the longest. It was a win-win-WIN! Sister Monica Joan had been in there for three months, PLUS she is black and white. My thinking, here in rural Kansas, is that not many wild predators (read: fox, coyote) go after black-and-white animals (read: most usually skunks?) Our vet thinks I am hilarious. And the other win? Sister Monica Joan is the sweetest little kitty one could ever imagine.
One of our neighbors (he lives seven miles away) stopped by this afternoon to drop off some wonderful lettuce from his garden. I, in turn, sent him home with four squash plants - all four different heirloom Italian winter squash plants.
I went out to my Darwinian garden, and ZOUNDS! The sweet peas I planted too many weeks ago are now up. I think I just checked on them a few days ago and decided they were a loss, but, no! Yippee for fun garden victories.
And so now I am showered and pondering dinner. I mentioned to that Spouse o' Mine that I can't Pass the Peace with anyone at church tomorrow because my hands are AWFUL. They are like sandpaper, even though I wore gloves all day.
* sigh*
I suppose that in the great scheme of things and days, mine was pretty wonderful. I hope you had a nice day, too.
A turtle kite:
