I have to practically put on hazmat gear to work in my garden. It's not that my garden is toxic (the neighbor's poison ivy, trying to creep through the fence, is being kept at bay), but what with the mosquitoes (West! Nile! Virus!) and the sun, which burns me in no time flat, I have to wear a long sleeve shirt and long pants to go out and pull weeds. It makes summer gardening so much fun, especially with the extra sweat for the dirt to stick in.
Today was a weeding day. I seem to have mostly sweet clover, which isn't hard to pull up, but there's just so much of it. Anymore, though, I only have to clear half my beds since the groundcover took over the rest while I was in engineering school. When I was done and shoveled a layer of peat moss around everything, I had Oz come out and move the peat moss onto the porch where it wouldn't get rained on.
I thought that would take two minutes and then we'd go out for breakfast, but when I looked out the window, I saw him cutting the grass/wild strawberry/violet mix (no un-ecological monoculture for us, oh no!). So I took a shower. A half hour later I looked out and he was wrangling potted plants. He went into a repotting frenzy, scattering potting mix and oxalis rhizomes every which way. Then he watered everything. Then swept. Then got out his electric leaf-blower.
That coffee that I talked about yesterday? With the extra caffeine? He drank a pint and a half of it this morning. He claims he didn't make it quite as strong as I did.
And after we had breakfast, he took a nap.
292 words | June 25, 2006 10:51 PM | Real true story