KeyWee's Blog

Day "whatever"
May 28, 2007 | 11:57 AM PST
Tags: Rain , recipes

Where in the heck did 22 days go?  Oh wait, that's right ~ I've been out looking for rain.  So far, it seems that dancing on the front lawn in a funny outift does not work.  When we bought this place, I never noticed that there is one, yes just ONE outdoor water faucet.  When I mentioned this to my husband, it became the mission he chose to accept.  Where-oh-where was the missing backup faucet.  Ding-ding-ding, you win ~ it's underneath the deck that the previous owner (God rest him) added to the side of the house.  Not to be deterred by a deck with maybe 8" of (ick) crawlspace, husband decides to do major surgery in order to expose extra faucet.  Ding, ding ~ you win AGAIN (gosh, it's your lucky day!) the water is disconnected.  We are now up to Plan W which includes something to do with the old well on the north side of the property.  That tale remains to be told.

In the meantime, I have been dragging the 300 miles of hose all over creation.  It isn't so bad on the days I don't step in the large gifts our doberman kindly leaves directly in my path.  What was I thinking when I planted perennials and shrubs nine miles from the house ~ that it would actually rain on them??!  Snort.  On the up side, I have color and lots of it.  Day lilies, roses, poppies, nasturtiums, anemones, primroses, verbena, diathus, blah, blah, brag, brag.  Since water is cheap here (they send out an emergency inspector if your bill soars to $30) I can spray away.

So all of you gardeners with work that is completed and nothing to do, take a look at my grilled garden veggie recipes in that forum.  Even though I cannot spell the word "ve-ge-ta-ble", they're still pretty darn good!

 

Day Two ~ the excitement continues!
May 5, 2007 | 1:10 PM PST

Well, OK ~ I guess you wouldn't really call it excitement, except for the fact that it rained at a very auspicious time ~ at night, and after I planted ALL those trees.  How cool is that?!

Since it rained, I behaved like the donut guy ("have to make the donuts") only I "have to weed".  It has come to my attention that there is no sense in weeding  unless it rains.  Sometimes I even make fake rain with a sprinkler, but only if I really HAVE to.  Maybe one-third of my weeding is done, and I am out of steam.  Maybe it's the fact that I get side-tracked so often.  Let's see a show of hands from the plant-movers-of-the-universe. 
Ahaaa ~ it's as I suspected.  Thank goodness my furniture isn't nailed down either.

Today's relocations ~ dianthus (being crowded out by sweet William), lamb's ear (could no longer find front steps), forget-me-nots (yup, I forgot 'em), hostas (because I can), cleome (because they smell funny).   Wonder what my plants think when they see me coming with shovel or spade? 

On a happy note, my crape myrtles have decided to rejoin the living after that thankless taskmaster Mother Nature sent us that ill-timed freeze.  I still have black skeleton leaves on some of the oaks in the woods.  Nice joke, not laughing.  Never thought I'd be a stripper.

Day One ~ Oh, the excitement!
May 4, 2007 | 1:25 PM PST

May as well start somewhere ~ today's the day!

Since the weather persons can't decide what to tell us, I decide to ignore them and proceed with caution.  So how cautious can one be considering I planted 25 Colorado blue spruce trees, five butterfly bushes and one spirea (bought off of the Lowe's "Buy-me-I'm-Dead" rack).   I also finished up planting everything I had started from seed, so in goes the last of the castor beans and praire sunflowers ~ good luck to you both.

This morning, I sat down and made a list of everything that's planted and/or growing in the yard.  Sometimes I scare myself, as I lost count at 80 or so, and the list isn't even close to finished.  Categories are trees, shrubs, grasses, vines, herbs, perennials ~ annuals don't count, right??  Somebody stop me.  It's not my fault that I lucked into so many free plants yesterday.  What's wrong with these people ~ can't they recognize an OC garden fanatic when they see one?  They're enablers.