Sticks and Stars

Today we had our first real day of spring. It’s been a really cold spring so far, unusually cold for us, and our winters are long and grey enough that spring is welcomed a bit maniacally even without the extra long wait. Early this week there was a forecast that today would be sunny and in the upper 60s and people have been talking about it all week. It is literally the only small talk I’ve heard for the past several days. And I wasn’t immune either. I like the soft grey days of our rainy climate, but they also make me appreciate the bright, invigorating sunny days all the more. I was happy to commiserate with coworkers and fellow bus commuters about the ways in which we were going to enjoy our sunny Saturday.

I felt like I should take the boys out to do something fun, but what I really wanted to do was stay home and garden, so that’s what we did. Ballet in the a.m. (”Mama, I really love my ballet class”), then a trip to a nearby nursery, and then home to commune with the earth. I felt kind of bad to be subjecting my boys to a day of yard work, but I had some suspicions that it might actually be fun if I included them in the jobs involving dirt and bugs and any sort of tools or machinery and my suspicions were correct.

I really didn’t have any intention of planting a garden or doing anything special with my yard this year until I read Kristina’s post about her own garden and I sighed with envy and felt inspired to spend way too much money at local nurseries. My landlord told me that the yard was up to me but while it’s relatively small (my front yard is probably about 25′ x 25′), it still requires a lot of work and I only managed to graduate to successful container gardening last year thanks to much handholding. But now I’m in it to win it, apparently. Last weekend I bought myself a reel mower and some weeding implements, and this weekend I spent $50 on plants (round one).

It doesn’t hurt that someone (presumably the last residents of my house) put a lot of effort into the yard and so all I really need to do is weed and replant the beds and then just maintain everything. And that’s my plan. Of course, the sheer number of beds (despite the small yard) and the sheer number of weeds means that I’m not exactly in for an easy time of it, but I’m determined. Today I mowed my lawn, weeded one full bed that stretches the entire length of my yard, and dug up the entire rock border (much of which had been entirely overgrown with grass — as in, buried under roots) and re-lined the bed. I am freakin’ exhausted but oh my it looks so pretty. And I haven’t even planted yet! I was figuring I’d tackle that tomorrow, but after resting for the while it’s taken me to write this entry, I feel a second wind coming on, so maybe I’ll do some planting tonight after all.

This yard is odd though. Someone apparently had a driftwood fetish because there is driftwood everywhere, and my boys were thrilled to find hundreds of shimmery opalescent marbles in the dirt, as well as a small Buddha. There is also a painting of a gnome attached to the fence, a painted welcome sign, a driftwood mobile and three bird houses. And a small, very slimy pond. The fence that separates my yard from my neighbor’s is chicken wire and was used to support beans last year (my plan for this year too, scarlet runners that will produce pretty flowers and edible beans) and my five year old spent much of the day happily harvesting the remains. His lunchbox full of dried pink and black beans is sitting next to me and it’s quite soothing to run my fingers through them.

This one is “before” as you might imagine.

And after! It’s been planted since so you really aren’t getting the full effect here, but you can get a clear sense of the driftwood oddness. Some of the driftwood (like that tied to my porch) I can cut down, but the stuff nailed to the fence will be harder.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 12th, 2008 at 10:06 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.