Busy Day

Today was a fantastic day. At first, it was hard for me to tear myself away from the Weather Channel, I was so fascinated with hearing that our forecast was to consist of "plentiful sunshine." Oh, did it ever.

Too much sunshine, in fact, for me to stay inside, with so much on the docket to accomplish today. The first order of business was to finish digging in the garden bed around the lamp post and the clematis vine there.

As I worked the soil free of the grass roots, plenty else came free as well, all the stones and bits of organic material and all the residents, as well, like this catepillar.

And, holy crap! Look at this giant worm. I couldn't believe the size of it, but fortunately thought to lay down my hand fork beside it for comparison. Now there's a worm you want to keep happy...


I had that section finished by around 11 a.m. or so and then turned over the bed where I'd laid out all the seaweed and salt hay a week or so ago.

The last thing I did before breaking for lunch was to test out the soaker hose. I'm always fascinated by the way the water beads up out of the hose. A side benefit of this was that the hose was full of water as it lay out in the noontime sun while I lunched, so it was more pliable for the afternoon install.

The pink azalea by the front door is starting to open today. Beautiful, huh?

The lunch break included a trip to the store, as I needed to pick up a few things for the afternoon projects: twine and pushpins to make some trellacing to help the morning glories find their way up the fence, some plastic knifes to mark where the soaker hose would be buried and a few other things, as well as a tuna sub from the Harwich Subway, where the world's angriest man was making sandwiches.

The soaker hose installation went well, and I wove a path through the garden, burying it about an inch under the soil surface. I tried to arrange it so that it would water the plants who'll benefit most.

Unfortunately, it wasn't quite long enough to cover the whole garden, so I'll still have some hand watering to do in certain areas. But I've also got a lot of seeds to plant which will thrive in drier areas, so it should all work out to the good.

Once that was in place, I built up a series of mounds in the area around the birdbath, which will be the home for the Three Sisters garden. Step one is complete now, with the corn planted in the center of the flattened mound. Once those sprout, I'll plant the beans, and then a week after that, the squash.

Next I made some trellaces on a few of the fence posts and got the older vines planted and trained onto the bottom of the strings. I have a feeling they'll take right off and start climbing up the posts by summer.

Meanwhile, as I dug in the hose, I also moved a few plants into the new bed near the lamp post.

That opened up space for the tomatoes I'll be planting tomorrow. And I was able to get my garden sign into the ground, as well. Also into that bed went the two canna lily plants I've been harboring in pots inside this winter.

I finished up with all I'd planned to do today just as Owen was getting home from work around 4 p.m. Whew...what a long and productive day. My forearms and face may've gotten a little more sun exposure than necessary, but I think I'll sleep especially well this evening, knowing all I've accomplished.


Perhaps the best part of the day was having everything done early enough that I was able to steal a few peaceful moments to sit in the sun on the back porch and do a little reading.

I seem to have a lot on my mind lately, since I find myself re-reading paragraphs as I get into the first chapter of this new book. Fortunately, they are great paragraphs. And what about that beautiful bookmark, hmmm? Thank you, Patrick!!

Here's the northern flicker on the lawn outside the front door this evening.