Happy New Year!

I hope your 2019 is the best ever.


I have spent December turning the entire back yard into potential veg garden.

I lay down cardboard everywhere but the septic leech field. I put whatever organics I had over that. (Oodles of leaves, old dirt from containers, compost, pine straw, fresh tree leaves.)  Several branches are holding down the leaves so they don't blow away in a winter storm. Over that, in January, I'll focus on my main veg beds, two 4 x 14 strips. I'll put down a mixture of

1 part bagged seasoned cow manure
1 part peat moss
1 part top soil
1 part bagged compost (I have mushroom and other composts, low priced at season's end.)
A few handfuls of slow-release veg fertilizer.

The rest of the yard, I'll keep an eye on. When the cardboard starts to rot away (or be eaten by worms), I'll lay down more. I have bags of leaf mold "cooking" in black plastic bags to add as more organics and weight.

In one section, I plan to grow winter squash, pumpkins, and melons, all of which will sprawl and keep the weeds down. In another semi-shady section, I'm going to try planting white, red, and black currants. In another section, I have the 4 x 4 bed I used last year. This year, that will be planted in spinach and mache, then in peas, then in beans for the summer.

I'm using a lot of my fencing for trellises. The next warm spell (next week), I'm finally attaching the fence to the top rail so it can take the weight of plants (and finally be straight and not flopping every which way).

I had two dead and one live tree taken out of my western yard to allow light in to the back yard and new perennial bed.
When I had my trees taken down, I asked to keep the chips, and he promised to deliver more for free. With the batch I have, I laid down two wood chip paths over cardboard. (My local dollar store is used to seeing me with a cheery smile and "cardboard?" being my only greeting.)

Every year, I'll add more shredded leaves and compost to the beds at the end of the season. There is some cost in labor and supplies here at the beginning, but after this, I'll only need to replace what breaks. I have a source for free compost in late autumn, and I'll be making a lot more of my own.


Next month, I'll post about seed-starting and list what I plan to grow. It's a lot! I'll feed my sisters and donate some.

the last three weeks in pictures

What do we have? We have tomatoes from the first week of November, Autumn leaves along the Mississippi River, and the first flakes of snow. I've made both pickled green tomatoes and fried green tomatoes for the first time ever. They're both okay, but neither is a big thrill.

oops, i turned off my cell phone service!

And getting my own photos to this blog was accomplished via smart phone and email. So I'm going to have to figure out how to sideload them from the phone, or figure out where the chip thingy is hidden and plug it into the computer to be able to illustrate this blog.

It's well and truly fall here. I'll share a picture of my sister's garden she sent me, with the Solomon's Seal turning yellow. My pine is dropping needles, which I'll use to mulch the new bed, along with some homemade bark mulch.

I'm done mowing, I believe. And I'm organizing seeds and thoughts for the spring already. I have pea trellises to make of limbs I've taken off trees, wire bought to make fence anchors, and many other winter tasks, so in a sense I'll be gardening all year long. I also want to do a week-by-week garden diary this next year, which will help me improve in 2020.

Have a fine Samhain and Day of the Dead.

perennial bed cleared and planted

Ridiculously, I did not take a before picture. Before was five unwanted bushes and trees, piles of weeds, ivy, and a mess. After four of the stumps were hauled off, I still had three days of pulling weeds, and the best I can give you is some of what I pulled up after the stumps were gone. The first is english ivy, a section of root longer than I am tall, with my reliable hand adz for size comparison.

There's also this old pic of weediness in another bed to give you some idea--though this perennial bed was much worse: 

And I spread a bag of peat and one of cow manure, worked them in, and planted gifts from sisters and plants I'd bought. I was able to save two tiny things from the garden this once was (a woman who lived here 5+ years ago was a good gardener, and I'm sure this was once a great bed, but when I moved in, the brick border was invisible under weeds and it was a mess.

So as of 10:30 this morning, this is what I have. I'm pleased. And freakin' sore!

Finally! Cool weather

We finally had a week of fall weather. It coincided with my house-warming party, which went super-well. Twenty of us sat outside in sunny 70 degree weather and talked and laughed and ate. It was a hit.

Yesterday, the family came over and we worked hard on my flower beds. My brothers-in-law pulled out seven stumps. The previous owner had gone along with a chainsaw and sawed off bushes and small trees about six inches above the ground, probably 2 years ago. But he didn't treat any of them, so they all sent up suckers and were quite healthy. Only one--a butterfly bush--was at all interesting to me, so out the ugly ones came.

While they were doing that, my sisters had brought over perennials they'd divided out of their own garden. Hostas from sister #2, who is the master gardener of the group (though we all enjoy it) and from sister #1, day lilies and grape hyacinth. I also spent $200 at Lowe's on soil amendments, perennials, and bulbs. I put in two kinds of daffodils and ranunculus along with the hyacinth in the bed around the big tree. I put in big allium in front of the front windows, which sister #2 said "needed some plants with height." I moved some irises that were in too shady a spot and pulled up more euonymus from those front beds (I hate that stuff and ivy for being nearly impossible to eradicate). We divided a couple of my hostas already in place and rearranged the front beds, taking out the spirea that was there (and which I think died back to nothing because of the hard freezes last year) to move to the side bed.

But it's that side bed that had five stumps that needed removing that excites me the most to work on the rest of the weekend. I need to weed it still, incorporate some peat and cow manure into the soil, and then I'm putting in 10 pots of perennials I have waiting to go in there. Sister #2 will probably bring me more--nepeta and plumbago are two I asked for. Others I'll start from seed this winter, like yarrow. I'm not going to put in much of any one plant until I see what lives and dies, what thrives and what won't even bloom in 2019. So by 2020, I'll have the perennial border in place and probably put in a fruit bush garden as well--blueberries and currants, and possibly strawberries (though they are a lot of hassle for a short season around here, so maybe not.)

The day before that work day, I got a "Pride" award in the mail. There's an organization that is about gardening and neighborhood beautification here. They drive around the whole area in pairs and if a yard looks good (especially if it looks good after looking bad for a few years, which was the case here), they jot down the address and send you an award. So all that moaning about mowing I did? Paid off in that the experts noticed. For the next two years, it should look better and better as I expand the plantings and pull out the other remaining dull stuff, paint the fence, and so on.

"Plant me, already!"

Still to do this fall after that is done: take down 2 dead pines and cut up that wood to burn in fireplace this winter. Get some hardwood to augment that for burning. Get estimates on trimming trees and taking down my (non-fruit-bearing) wild pear, which is shading where I want my bigger veggie garden to go, and on taking down the sweet gum, which will probably cost in the $$thousands, and I'll have to decide if I want to do that or not. (I go back and forth, depending on how many damned balls I have to pick up that week. I hate killing a healthy tree, but I hate the hassle of it.) And possibly I will go ahead and build the raised veggie bed this fall and lay down plastic beneath it to kill the grass there over winter, waiting to get the yards of compost delivered in early spring. Looks like it won't get down to barely freezing until Thanksgiving, if the long-term climate forecast is correct, so I have time to do a lot more.

Mowing, I could do without. But this part having a yard? This is super fun.

Lessons learned

Part of gardening is making mistakes and doing better.

My main lessons with vegetables this year:

1) Bunnies and green beans aren't a good pairing. Will try again next year with a double fence.

2) Bok choi and bugs--another problem pairing. If I want anything in the broccoli family at all, I'll have to spray with Neem Oil often. Or, and this is probably what I'll do, I can buy frozen bags of broccoli at the store instead. It's the only member of the family I outright love.

3) Stake! Tomatoes! More! This was a bizarrely good year for tomatoes here, but my plants were over seven feet tall at one point, and once the fruit begin to grow on stalks like that,  you'd better have a very sturdy trellis system that goes up that far. I'll probably use those metal fence posts and wire pig wire to them good and tight, and then tie the tomatoes up that.

4) Try to plant tomato plants two weeks apart so they don't all come in at once. More cherry tomatoes, fewer big tomatoes.

4) Despite the heat, my compost isn't composting very quickly. It rained twice a week here, but perhaps it needed even more water? I don't know, but the pile of grass clippings and vegetables still looks pretty much like a pile of grass clippings after three months. In the black container, out of the black container, all the same.

Questions still about vegetables:

- How much is enough garden space? I'm tripling next year and will be able to do spring and summer plantings if the weather cooperates.
- At what point will I need to buy a small chest freezer?
- Where can I get cheap soil and compost for a bigger raised bed?

I will plant more perennials with my sisters (they are both dividing their plants and donating to me) at the very end of September.This year, I just went with the things that were here, and only moved some roses. Next year, I'm sure to have some death and disaster among flowers, and more lessons to learn.

tomatoes

today's tomato harvest. I had this many on Wednesday as well.

Tomato sauce time!

I've been in a sun a lot...

So here's a pic of my hair, which gets lighter and sunstreaked the more I'm out in the sun. This is taken indoors, on an overcast day. In the sunlight, it appears blonder. My gray hair continues to fall out more than it stays around.

I have my house-warming party this month, so I'll be getting the yard in as good of shape as I can before that. I'll take pictures when I do.

Tomatoes and more

We just had two very nice days, allowing me to mow again. I haven't had to spend a dime on mowing this year, luckily. The weather had cooled off once every 10 days or so to allow me to keep up!

A few leaves are falling already. Leaves turning and autumn is one reason I wanted to move back east. (Another was fishing, and I've been fishing exactly zero times so far--who has time?)

I have bought all the mulch I'll need and am about to spread it in the rear gardens. Only the side garden remains that needs weeding. Depending on how you count them, I have about 7 flower/bush beds.

I put together a rough plan for next year's veggie garden. 4 x 16 is what I plan to build, a raised bed fenced with chicken wire all around, plus the 4 x 4 bed I have, which I'll move a little bit and use for 100% potatoes. I don't know how I can explain how marvelous home-grown potatoes taste compared to store-bought, but there is a distinct difference. I'll be giving away a lot of veggies with that big a garden, but that's fine by me!

Pictures

The peppers from the toughest survivor pepper plant ever are starting to get a tiny bit of color:

The wild morning glory blooms every morning.

Butterfly bush in bloom (with more morning glory wound around it.

bunnies, hostas, tomatoes

Welllll. The cute bunnies like green beans a lot. This used to be five bushes with flowers! Of course gardening is about learning your own locale, its pests and problems. Need to fence them better next year and spray them with pepper spray:

My front yard hostas are all in bloom--very pretty, and the pollinators like the flowers, so double win:

And finally, this is one day's harvest of tomatoes. Good thing I like tomatoes!

Tomatoes for breakfast

My favorite new thing to do is stand in the garden at 6 a.m. and eat tomatoes off the vine.

Everything is growing hard and fast in perfect weather for a garden. I've eaten bok choi, chard, squash, and tomatoes out of my own garden so far. I have carrots, kohlrabi, radishes, potatoes, and peppers still in a pre-harvest stage.

Here's the Google satellite view of my house. I think you get the sense of how it's abutting rural land. So quiet!

Nice break in the weather

We had over 10 days of 80 degree weather, and one afternoon I shivered with the windows open. It was in the 60's for a moment, as a storm came through.

I have tomatoes, though most are still green, I have all kinds of fall root crops coming up, I had green beans but now I have baby bunnies and that's not a great match. The potatoes (from grocery store potatoes I had ignored for too long) look great. Chard, peppers, yellow squash all edible, but I'll let the peppers ripen before I pick them.

I made pickled peppers from farmer's market banana peppers with a simple recipe. 1:1:1 apple cider vinegar, white vinegar, and sugar (they were sweet--you could put in less sugar), plus celery seeds and black peppercorns.  They were yummy! I'll lower the sugar content and pickle anything extra I get.

I'm still here!

I've been busy writing the next book, so haven't had time to check in here.

I continue to mow every 8-10 days and continue to curse it. But I'm also grateful that once every 8-10 days it has been dropping down below 90 degrees, so I can mow without dying.

I have three healing mowing injuries right now. One was caused by a dead pine stabbing me. (I hope we take them out this fall!) So one day I went out with my new 20 volt battery operated reciprocating saw and got rid of all the branches that could reach me. I burned some and some are sitting there looking messy. I'd move them, but I think there's a cardinal nesting in them already. Working around the wildlife takes some effort!

My veggie garden, despite some bug problems (I'll never plant a brassica again, that's for sure!) is looking good. Here is the pepper plant that was transplanted three times, uprooted by a raccoon at my sister's, dragged 20 feet, and then squashed flat when a tomato plant and cage fell over onto it during a storm, and somehow still manages to create peppers. (I'm saving seeds. This is a miracle plant).

And here is my first summer squash (yellow--I prefer the taste and use them in stir-fries) finally appearing. In two weeks, I'm going to be drowning in them, I know.

Storm!

A dramatic half hour last night, with a tornado warning, brief electrical outage, more lightning crammed into five minutes than I've ever seen before, and brief 60 mile per hour winds. Whew!

Only when it had passed did I remember I'd canceled my house insurance the morning before. I lucked out with no damage, but you can be sure at 9 a.m. I was in line at the agent's to sign a check for coverage before the next one hits. (And oh, the claims they were processing.)

from radar. It was crazy, honestly how much lightning!

I intended to weed-whip a weedy section of the yard tomorrow, but as I was picking up this morning, I realized there many dozen baby frogs in it! The neighbors are going to have to suffer through taller weeds, I'm afraid. I'm not going to kill baby frogs.

115 degree heat index forecast the next two days. And probably two months until it is pleasant to work outside again.  See you soon!

2 big yard days

We've just had probably the last two decent days until September, more than likely, and I spent ten hours over two days in the yard. I mowed everything, I turned compost, I put glyphosate on various weeds--and at the chain link fence line as I can't possibly mow or weed-whip there. I hoed up some other weeds that are in beds I don't want chemicals in because there's at least one good plant I didn't want to risk harming. I finally transplanted the roses I dug up--though they were growing so well in the bucket I had them in, maybe I should have left them there! I set up the outlines of a second vegetable raised bed and finally gave up on a few kinds of seeds coming up in the first and planted other items there (chives and this odd stuff called strawberry spinach, which is not technically a spinach, but has both leaves and fruit you can eat.)

I'm going to plant potatoes and green beans in it. The beans will definitely do well, but depending on first freeze, the potatoes may be small when I harvest them. When the beans are done, I'll put in more chard, lettuce, and when the potatoes are up, I'll put in leek starts if I can find them and mulch them super-well for the winter. If it gets down to sub-zero again here, as it did last year, I may lose them, but I'll give it a go, buy a bale of straw, and hope for the best.

I was about to water one of my hanging baskets of annuals when I looked into it (luckily, I had taken it down first), and there was a nest of seven sparrow eggs. Oops! I put it right back up and checked five minutes later and mom or dad was back in there already. The flowers will die from lack of water, but I should be able to see the activity in the nest from my kitchen window, which is nice. I didn't take a shot of MY nest, but wikipedia has a photo of a similar one.

An hour later, I almost ran over my snake with the mower but stopped in time. I stopped, he stopped, I said "shoo," which apparently is not snakese for "move your butt along." I finally had to poke him gently with a stick to get him slithering off. I like taking care of the wild animals. Frogs sang me to sleep last night, which was lovely.

I think this is the last time I'll mow until September. Climatologist are predicting a terrible July from Kansas to Boston, hot and muggy, and I don't want to die from mowing. So I'll hire a guy to do it twice a month in July and August and hope that much mowing keeps the neighbors from complaining. Expensive, but far cheaper than a heart attack for someone without insurance like me. I will say, though, I'm getting the hang of it. It's a fiddly thing, that electric mower with a cord, but by next year I should be able to get through the mowing in less than four hours spread over two days. If I can find the money, more vegetable beds will go in and there will be less to mow!

July 10 my sister is taking me to the middle of nowhere Illinois to visit a market farm of a friend of hers, a 76-year-old man who tends 2 acres alone, mostly by hand (and he has a greenhouse, I believe). I'm taking my gardening gloves so I can help him. Must be a lot of work. I want to see if it's something I really might be interested in doing, as I keep saying I am. He sells at two farmer's markets. I'm close to two "tonier" farmer's markets where you can charge a lot more, especially if you plant "weird" and heirloom crops, like elephant garlic, blue potatoes, black tomatoes, and so on. I could get a lot of vegetables out of a quarter acre.

Still a big item on the list: taking down two dead pine trees. BIL #1 and I want to do it, but he has projects, I have projects, and we need a cool morning when we are both free...and that might be September before it happens!

again, a wikipedia image

Monday through Friday will be increasingly hot, and I need to get back to writing, so that's what I'll be doing those days. Probably won't post then...but who knows. Maybe a big limb will hit my roof or something exciting that gives me something else to complain about!

rainy days, organizing garage

The last two days have been rainy, and while I went outdoors, both days the skies opened up on me!

I'm in a really bad phase with poison ivy, by the way. The only saving grace is that it's not as bad as west coast poison oak, which I also had in Oregon. Bad enough, tho. Week 2 of it, and by Week 4, I guess it'll be gone.

So the last two days I've spent my work time on the garage. It was a laughable disaster. For one thing, I have 10 new electric tools and want to keep the boxes in case they die quickly so I can return them. That pile of boxes is still there and not pictured.

But the tools hanging against the wall are up now, so that shovel will quit falling on my noggin every time I grab something else!

The white cabinet on the right (free, from Sister #2) is filled with garden stuff--tiny tools, poisons, plant markers, tomato and flower food, extra gloves, and whatnot.  Getting just those two things done is a big improvement. And third from the left of the tools, the smallest of them, is a gift from BIL #1, FENCE PLIERS, which are like my second favorite tool EVER. I had some in Oregon but sold them. So smart a design! My favorite tool ever is to its left, a hand hoe/straight claw, heavy enough to also kill an attacker with. I took out a big bush stump with only that and the loppers. I've never seen another, and you couldn't buy it from me for a thousand bucks. I had it with me the whole time in the RV, not because I needed it but because I knew I'd never replace it if I gave it away.

The next two days are supposed to be cooler and dry, so I get to mow again. I actually haven't quite finished the mowing from last time, but it's time to do it all over. However, the weather is forecast to be cool enough I can stay out five or six hours each day and catch up. My BIL keeps telling me if I buy a rider mower, I can knock the whole yard off in an hour. I don't want one tho. I'll kill myself on it.

Every ten days, I have a task list to get through:

1. mow front, side, & back
2. weedwhip/edge ... and turn the compost pile
3. leaf blow the driveway
4. pick up the GD sweet gum balls, which never ever stop until I murder that tree
5. clean the house
6. shop for groceries

And then the other four days, I get to do maybe one fun thing, and I write most days, check the veggie garden daily and water containers every other day if it hasn't rained and leafblow the back patio....whew! With the time left, I have to try and make headway on the flower beds that I've barely touched, spray Roundup some more, etc. (That poison ivy is fighting for life, so it'll take two doses at least.) I have a list of other chores, repairs and high-priority improvements. It's long. Between being rained out some days and "heated out" on others, I may be done with the list by the time the ground freezes in December.

Bad news in cleaning out the garage: they left me over 20 empty paint cans. (or cans with two inches of paint in them, which is worse).

Good news in cleaning out the garage: I'd been frustrated at thrift stores looking for cutlery. I finally bought a 20-piece set at a Ross for $9, but that really won't help me if I have a crowd here (and I have a crowd of relatives that would overwhelm 8 forks. But among the paint cans and casters that go to furniture that's long gone and curtain rods I don't want, I found this:

Aha! Ask and ye shall receive, apparently.

watering at dawn

The only 75 degree (95 heat index) moment in the day, so I watered. In the low light, I grabbed a couple blurry pix--one of four little tomatoes and the crown of the crookneck yellow squash that's coming along. There is also a pak choi in the background of the tomato pic with its true leaves.

No human I've spoken with here likes this awful heat/humidity right now, but the tomatoes sure do!

squash, planted seed 23 May

mystery variety of tomato, small plant put it 23 May

so hot

It's unbearably hot, and I have to mow at least two days out of every week, and I think by the end of those days that it's literally going to kill me By the time I stop, the weather people tells me it's a heat index of 95 or so. Old people shouldn't be pushing mowers around on hills in such conditions!

Today, realizing any headway I make on the days it is not raining and I'm not mowing will be slow indeed, I used off-brand Round-Up on some weeds. I never thought I'd do that, ever! And yet the weeds--some of which were poison ivy--were just taking too much of the "cooler" time I have left.

I'd love to have all gardens. I'll happily weed once they are rehabbed and mulched. But the lawn and me, we're gonna have problems.

It's raining!

You know what's great about rain? I don't have to feel guilty for not being outside in the yard. :-D

I've heard many compliments now about the work I've done so far--directly, and when relatives mention what house I bought and someone in my locale says "oh yes! Someone has really been cleaning that up!" How nice that the work is appreciated.

I like working in the yard for its own sake...but I'd like it a bit more if it wasn't 85% humidity when I go out there at 5:30 a.m.

Planning for the fall

I don't yet have a year's neglect fixed, I have loads of summer tasks ahead of me, and it's crazy to think about autumn, and yet I toured Sister #2's perennial garden today so I could pick out what I wanted her to give me in the fall, when one transplants perennials. She has about six hosta varieties and six sedums, some lovely red yarrow, but I'm not sure I have sun enough for all of it yet.

I also liked her Plumbago. ("Lumbago?" I asked. "Isn't that a disease?" No, PLUMBago.)

I found three roses in the round bed I need to rescue before I tear everything else up (and probably follow that up with a chemical weeder, and I know, that's awful...but far easier than weeding every week!)

Weather is back to crazy hot and humid. There were only the two nice days, and the whole rest of the time (three weeks) I've owned the house, work has been ... well, WORK! Mowing in 95 degrees and 85% humidity is not for someone my age.

Today's tasks were cut short by a day of thrift store shopping, but I moved dried grass to the compost bin, moved piles of still green cut grass to the drying shed, and watered all the perennials, hanging plants, and vegetables well. I can (barely) get by with watering every two days in this heat, but only that long.

Finally, my patio. Yews, lots of concrete, the shed (which I'm only using for grass drying so far), a bluebird house (a gift from my only remaining aunt), and a lone cherry tomato plant.

I'm my father and mother's daughter

Dad: "I swear I'm going to pave over this whole lawn and spray paint it green."

Mom: truly enjoyed spending two hours sitting in the grass and pulling out weeds and picking up things like sweet gum balls.

I'm both. Though what I want to do with the side lawn, on a slope, is not pave it but turn it into a terraced market garden. Elephant garlic/leeks, and parsnips, I think. Just two crops per year, a winter one and a summer one. There are lots of farmer's markets here to sell at.

Tomorrow will see the end of the work required by the year's worth of never picking up the sweet gum balls by the previous owners. I have collected four big trash bags of those, plus two of pine needles and cones. Here's where I started today:

Like Mom, I sit cross-legged on the ground and feel around for the ones that have been driven into the roots of the grass and toss them on the pile. And I find it therapeutic.

And bless the weather gods, today was finally a spring day, 70 and not humid. Even the mosquitoes weren't bugging me as they have been on those humid and aiming-for-90-degree days we've had since I bought the place. A great morning to work outdoors.

And this--this is the kind of thing that makes me want and love a real yard and garden. Isn't it a beauty?

A frog!

I know both honeybees and frogs are in trouble, but I have both in the yard. Not sure the frog will outlast the snake, but I'm rooting for him.

1.5 hours to mow half the lawn today. 85 degrees when I quit, and I was soaked. I am learning how to use the corded electric mower without running over the cord! (good thing. Splicing is boring.)

And yes, once I saw the frog, I walked around the patch I was about to mow and kicked at things to make sure I didn't run over him.

Work week #2. Late May

I've been getting up at 5 every morning, going outside to beat the crazy midwestern heat, and working. The front flower beds are in shape now. I mulched this morning.

The front bed is inherited plants plus the little lavender I just bought that you can see at the left of that shot. It's hostas and spirea on that side, plus a lovely big asiatic lily I'll post pics of when more buds open.. On the other side of the door, it's mostly irises, and I have some coleus seed coming up and there are 2 little day lillies. This fall, I think I'll fill in that side with other spring bulbs: hyacinth and tulips and daffodils. The side in the shot has a trellis in the brickwork, which just screams out "clematis" to me. Next year!

I've never had hostas before (I had a real showcase of a bulb garden once, so bulbs are easy-peasy for me), but they appear to be nearly idiot-proof. I am not one of those magical gardeners who can grow things in zones they don't belong in, but I'm competent.

There are four other flower beds, and most of them are quite weedy. There's a hyacinth in one, two untended azaleas in another with lots of dead to cut out, and two that are all weeds, including this round one around the sweet gum tree. Lots of work to do still!

And there's a big lawn to mow. It's 1/3 of an acre, and while the house takes up a good chunk of that, it's two mornings of push-mowing for me. The going rate here for a mowing is $50/week, and yes, you have to mow every week in May and June. Maybe every 10 days in July, August, and September.

Fun stuff today:

• BIL #2 bought me a battery-operated electric leaf blower and weed whip/edger. He hauled off a pile and two big bags of garden waste too. Thanks!
• He pointed out my new pet, a 3-foot long black snake sunning itself on the rocks in the second shot.
• Mulching is EASY compared to lots of other things I've done (mowing, raking, digging out stumps)

Report on vegetable garden:  Tomatoes fine, pepper plant blooming, squash seeds up and secondary leaves there, bok choy and chard sprouted.

a first post

How do I do this again?

I think I have it. Must not lose this blog address!

the front of the house on walk-through day.