Acting like a tree-hugger

I've been making GREAT progress on my yard over the past 3 weekends. The worst part of it is done- the cleanup of the stuff that died out over the winter, and the danged weeds that think they're pretty enough to be showcased (they're not).

I've been doing something different this year and I hope my yard doesn't overdose on preen. I go over the areas that have already been weeded each time I garden and then pour another light dose of preen. So far, it's taking me about 10 minutes to re-weed those areas. Y'all have seen my yard by now- when I say areas, I mean BIG areas. The preen makes a HUGE difference.

Stuff is starting to grow back and the yard is not depressing to look at anymore. I tell you what, I have the MOST beautiful and relaxing yard until winter comes. Then it just depresses the heck out of me. I guess dead and brown would depress anyone.

Anyhoo...

I'm really hoping to FINISH the major stuff tomorrow- I don't care HOW long it takes. I was gardening for six hours straight last Sunday. I'm not talking namby-pamby gardening, I was hacking at things most of the time and filled my 48 gallon yard waste container with stuff that was no bigger than my hand. That's a lot of stuff. Trust me.

I still haven't used my prized rototiller yet. The area that I plan to till now has that nasty stinging nettle higher than my head. I need to wack that stuff down before I can get to where I want to go. I suspect I will have the same story to tell that I tell every year.

"I got smacked in the face with the nettle again".

You'd think I'd learn, but when I'm on a mission- I'm like a machine. I sometimes envision getting my garden to the point one day where I can have a cute little basket and a nice gardening hat and just pick the pretty flowers; weeds being a thing of the past. I have a feeling that if that day comes, I will have hired someone to do the 'dirty' work- and that's just not going to happen. There's something very therapeutic about wacking things.

Oops- did I say that out loud?

With every plant that comes back to life, my gratitude meter raises another few notches. Within a month, there will be no living with me because that's when EVERYTHING starts going to town in my garden and it different things bloom every few weeks until fall. That's a lot of joy, my friends.

I"ll take some pictures of "now" and upload them to my flickr account later on today. Every year I try to add something new (that also means removing something I didn't care for very much from the previous owners), and even though it'll probably look the same to y'all- it becomes more beautiful and more 'mine' every year. This is 'our' (me and my garden) third anniversary and it still takes my breath away.

No wonder I've become such a homebody. It's hard to leave a place that brings me such peace and joy.

If you haven't been with me long, here's the entry of when I first saw this place and had to rely on my faith that my gut wasn't steering me wrong.

I kid you not... every time I walk past this robin's nest, I want to take some scissors to it to trim it up a bit.


I do have to give her props for using some pretty colors:


I know... I know.... I really have to let go of "everything must be neat and tidy".

People! You know how many hours I spend weeding in my garden! I just learned about Preen this week. One of my gal pals at work told me about it and I couldn't believe my ears!

She said that she weeds first thing in the spring and then spreads around the preen and then might have to do another round MAYBE once in the summer. No weeds!

Lawdy, I probably have spent (multiplies x number of weekends times 8 hours) 64 hours or more just weeding my garden. You see how many areas there are.

Yesterday was no exception. You have to pull all of the weeds before putting down the preen, so that's exactly what I did. I was on my hands and knees in every spot, pulling out the little creatures.

This area was the worst because there were places with concrete pads (for walkways). My knees aren't feeling the love for those things today:


Here we have last week's mess pruned tree with the new geraniums. It's coming along nicely. See that cool looking grass to the right? It's called blood grass and it'll look really cool when it's full grown.


I filled another four yard waste bags and am STILL not done. I have an area in the back that is SCARY. It's full of prickly weeds and I think I'm going to try burning it back there (after I check out the laws for burning in this area).

Finally, I sprinkled Preen all over the yard. I wanted to cut off my arms by the time I was done, they were so sore and shaky.

Boy I hope that Preen stuff works. That will be the FIRST thing I do next spring.

Here's the requisite view from the bench on the back porch.


More pictures of my perfectly weeded garden (except for that icky place) can be found on my Flickr account. (yeah, I know- it looks the same TO YOU as last month!)

Rather than work on my project yesterday (bad girl, BAD girl!) I gardened. There have been so many things BUGGING me, so I decided to take care of the things that bugged me the most and then work my way from there.

This wasn't la-dee-da type of gardening either, this was heavy duty pruning (yikes, story to follow), thinning out areas, planting new stuff, etc. Wanna know how long I worked? Sure you do! 6.5 hours.

I'm S.O.R.E. today, but dang, my yard looks good. Well, except one thing.

I have a curly willow tree that I pruned a few weeks ago and I just didn't quite prune it right. It looked lopsided to me and it was bugging the livin' daylights out of me. Even *I* have to admit that I did a bit too much. The bearded eye-roller said that it now looked like Robert De Nero in Taxi Driver (::ahem:: note the mohawk).

Here's a picture of what it looked like last year. The tree is to the right of the frame and has leaves all the way to the bottom:


It all started with a protein shake with sugar-free peppermint. We'll blame it on the protein energy 'high'.


Here's the aftermath. I decided to put some geraniums around the base, so it took away from the bareness of it all. I don't think I have NEARLY enough geraniums to make the pruning less noticeable:


I trimmed the dead stuff off of all the ferns, QUITE the chore, I might add. I weeded everything I could see from our bench (you know, the one we sit at every night), and I thinned out my herb garden. There is nary a weed to be found from where we sit.

When all was said and done, I filled a 32 gallon yard waste bin PLUS filled four yard waste bags.


BER was kind enough to buy me a higher powered trimmer (wow- is he brave, eh?) with a longer blade. Being that he's a guy, he had to be the first to use this power animal. So, I let him go to town on the shrubs. I was OK with letting him do it because then if he saw how much fun it is to cut things down, he might understand my obsession. He filled two more yard waste bags with the stuff he trimmed off.

Believe it or not, I'm not done. I still have the North 40. Let's hope for an overcast yucky day today so I don't get another gardening bug. I have WORK to do.

More pictures can be found in my Flickr account.

Yours truly killed a baby bird yesterday. Yup. I did.

Remember when a bird got itself into the bird feeder?


Well, it happened again yesterday. The bearded eye-roller and I were sitting on our back porch discussing our day (before the Visible Risible... I'm keeping that name, by the way!) and I noticed that there was a bird in the feeder.

At first, I thought he was dead because he wasn't moving very much, but then got excited when I saw some movement. BER lifted the lid to the feeder to set him free and he just sat there.

We picked him up out of the feeder and he just stayed in my hand (not a good sign!). I assumed that he was dehydrated because it was a hot day and who knows how long he was inside the feeder. After giving him a little pep talk, I put him on the grass where we could watch him, and put some water on the grass next to him.

He wandered around for a bit and seemed to be perking up, so I went inside to install my video cam software. I went to check on him after I posted and he was legs up in the grass. Sweet BER offered to bury him for me. Isn’t that about the sweetest thing you’ve ever heard?

Why was it my fault? I *KNEW* the feeder was getting low and suspected that's why the first bird was caught in there. I was going to add more to the feeder on Saturday, but...

Lesson learned. Keep the stupid feeder full at all times. That thing holds like 5lbs of food.

In other news....