Amazing how fast these things happen.

Sometimes, why do we bother to plant?

Grass needs cutting, but, oh well! I need the little seedling grasslings to get big and juicy before the lawnmower man runs em over.

Ate dinner outside, and spent some time pulling up weeds, and re-planting the cannas bulbs that some curious critter had pulled out. Good thing they are apparently not tasty!

Tomorrow I get out of work a bit early. Not real early, or even early enough -- but it will be to the garden, not the computer, that I will first go! YEAH!

Stuff to do, seeds to see, let 'em grow!!!

So... why do we celebrate Springfest on the computer? Indoors? How about I just get the yard ready? The cannas roots in? Make a new veggie patch? Remove more excess saplings? The concrete stoop re-cemented? (Being a single homeowner I have to be the house mom and dad -- I can't get the cats to take out the garbage! Or fix the concrete stoop -- and except for the really heavy lifting or the climb on the roof sort of things, I actually prefer the maintenance homeowner stuff to the cleaning homeowner stuff jobs...)

Missing the point, though. It's spring. As a Modest Proposal, could we maybe switch the spring and fall festivals at AW to winter and summer ones, when the weather is either too cold or too hot to give a fig about what's happening outside?

All right, all right... and, I'll have fun, too. But!

We had rain, heavy at times, yesterday, although I scattered some grass seed during it, so to get the stuff germinating. Earlier this week, I did some shubbery-trimming, although I am going to have to get the tree-trimmer out to clip the top of the boxwood. It's now out of my reach. So, picture if you will, a nicely elongated, barrel-shaped boxwood... with sprigs of itself sticking out forlornly like cowlicks on top.

Today it is drizzling intermittantly. This afternoon they predict regular rain, so I got out there, cleared out another couple of beds, put down cedar chips, scattered the rest of the grass seed (I will need more), and planted the early seeds in the veggie patch.

This year: spinach, shell peas, and purple mustard greens (mustard purples???)

Elsewhere, two signs of tulips return. I'll have to remember the old hair from the hairbrush trick on them, when they get far enough along to be venison bait. Those pesky varmints consider tulips to be akin to the finest Swiss dark chcolate! In the old days, we'd just set up hunters' blinds, and have at them with the deer gun -- but there seems to be some unfortunate zoning regulations around here about discharging firearms so many feet from another abode...

More yard work beckons! And, mind you, this is NOT a bad thing!

So far, I've cleaned up the rock garden, put out the decor (so far, a rabbit, and a cement cat which seems kind of Egyptian only in the fact that its nose is now chipped...). More heavy duty work included sawing off tree branches that were getting out of hand, and cleaning up roadside, both lawn and the flower/shrub bed.

I've always liked pulling off old winter's leaves and debris to find the young perennial shoots just beginning to make their way to the surface, below. Woodruff, bleeding hearts, bearded irises, oregano, coneflowers... yes, everything still seems to be there!

After lunch, I'll go clean off the vegetable bed, and turn the soil; the seeds are waiting.

I like doing the spring garden chores, I tend to put off the autumnal ones! Difference between new life, spring weather, and the fall time when you get to see no benefit when you're done...