electric mist

weeding

There's something immensely satisfying about weeding. (If my dad saw that sentence, he would have a stroke, since as a kid, I could not have told you where the back yard was, much less how to weed anything.) Of course, lest I sound like earth mother or something, that sort of satisfaction is one of those things that, for me, a little goes a long way.

I woke up this morning at 5 with a headache-from-hell. To the point where I was apparently writhing in agony and woke Carl up. He tried to help (massaging a couple of pressure points in my neck usually helps, but not much this morning), and so I simply could not face the computer today.

Instead, I weeded the front beds, enjoying my new yellow tea rose bushes (I'll take photos tomorrow) and the daffodils still blooming. I had all of these new little baby fern looking things sprouting up, which surprised me since I hadn't planted anything like that... I intended to buy a few althea ferns (like wood ferns), but was thinking, "ooh, cool... I don't have to buy any since all of these are growing now."

Which begged the question, where did they come from? My first thought was that they had been seeds mixed in the soil we'd just brought in to build the beds. Then my neighbor drove up and I tagged him to come over -- he speaks "master gardener" and I pointed to the "ferns' and said, "Um, David, this is probably a dumb question, but are these ferns?"

He laughed.

Turns out they are the seedlings from a golden rain tree he has in his yard -- which has a fern-like leaf. I had carefully weeded all around all of those "ferns" today, because I was so pleased to have ferns. And now I am going to have to go out there tomorrow and pull all of those damn baby trees, because there are like, one billion of them in my beds. Grrr.

So, now it's back to plan A, buying the ferns I want to fill in between the shrubs. I wants ferns, some hostas, and some various grasses -- wide-bladed and reedy-bladed, for variation in the beds. Then I'll finish it with bedding plants and take photos. And next, on to the back yard, which looks horrid right now.

On a side note, I am about finished with the tax audit information I had to prepare (which I haven't discussed yet on this site -- that's a horror story for another day)... and next week, will do the actual taxes and bring that to the CPA. At that point, I think I will get my actual life back -- my writing life. I have been writing in bits and pieces around all of the other work, but I cannot function like that for long -- I am used to having set projects and getting them finished in a set frame of time... not dribbling them out over months and months. Must get back to writing or go nuts, you know? Well, if you're a writer or an artist, you know.

Posted by toni at April 3, 2004 07:57 PM