Sunday, July 12, 2009

perfect day

Today was amazing. Sunny, not too hot, not at all humid.

Naturally, I decided I had to wash all the towels. But I also gardened until it started raining. Lovely, it were.

The front NE bed is now kidney shaped. Sort of. I yanked out the ornamental onions, which means most will still come up next year. I also removed weeds. We've had a mess of rain. That's the technical term, honest. And it's helped the quack grass and other weeds to thrive. Amazing how well rooted grass not on the lawn is. Weeding is one of those things people who pass by always say that's a lot of work. As I tell them - it's only work if you don't like it. And I love it.

I seeded more lawn between the flower beds, as the bits I seeded July 2nd are a wee mite sparse. My inner Scot is dead - I can splurge on grass seed. Honest. I haven't smelt so much as a wiff of sporin.

I also did some hedge trimming.

I realize most people use an electric hedge trimmer. I do not use power tools, my experience in the basement nothwithstanding. I spent an entire summer mowing our not insubstantial lawn with a push mower - it worked fine. So I trim hedges with manual clippers, which are never sharp enough. Yes, I sharpened them, I have a file specifically for that purpose. But it doesn't seem to do much.

My hedge trimming technique is effective, if unorthodox.

1. Trim bits you can reach.
2. Jump to trim bits you can't.
3. Get large shaky wooden ladder. Trim half of top you can reach from that side.
4. Whack hedge periodically to dislodge trimmed bits.
5. Use trimmed bits as mulch under pine.

I got half done, so it looks even less tidy than before - now it has odd bits sticking up on half of the top. I'm not going back out there - the mosquitoes are fierce. Fierce, I tell you, fierce. And standing on a rickety ladder with freshly sharpened clippers swatting mosquitoes is even less smart than not swatting mosquitoes.

To further improve a perfect day, the blackberries are ripening, and I managed to creep through the entire patch without any bleeding. They were delicious. I laughed at the berries at the grocery store, priced at $2.99 per half pint. Hah! I ate half a pint before I even got into the patch.

So now I will head back to work, with a composter full of weeds, a half trimmed hedge, a nicely seeded new chunk o' lawn and blackberries to look forward to when I get home. The clean towels are OK too, but not exactly life altering.

2 comments:

zpeacocker' said...

the blackberries would be even better if you shared (:
ive eaten less than 10 :p

Spalfy said...

I brought some in later.

Honest.

Dad gave most of them to granddad.

I'll pick you some tomorrow. They are even better now.