OUCH!

Saturday morning I went to the plant nursery and badgered the manager for awhile until I finally bought some replacement plants for the front 2 flowerbeds.  I ended up with star jasmine and some foxglove.  When push comes to shove, whatever is in there needs to be simple, soft and bloom.  I bought a little trellis for the middle of the larger bed and some dirt (3 bags full) and a bunch of star jasmine.  Wedged all that in my little Jetta and came home.  

I pulled out all the old lavender in both beds, tilled them with my new Mantis, added some ‘good dirt’, and dug 14 holes.  On the first swipe with the tiller, a rock got lodged between the blades and the axle and so I had to stop and get Husband to help take off the blade and free the rock.  But, once that was cleared up, it was pretty much incident free.  Speaking of rocks……….I think where we live must have been a riverbed at one time.  If you just scratch the surface, you find more rocks than dirt.  I tried to throw all the rocks I dislodged over my shoulder as I dug – which meant, of course, what when I stepped back from the job I stepped on the piles of rocks!  Filled about 4 gallon containers full (the empty star jasmine pots).  One rock was actually more of a boulder.  Crazy big.  Anyway, I would love to have front beds that are remarkable and unique but remarkable and unique translate to remarkable work and upkeep.  Plus, I can’t decide.  So, simple and relatively inexpensive?  Who knows – that stuff adds up – let me tell you.  Anyway, it took a long time but it wasn’t hot or too sunny, so that helped.  I was dead tired when finished and the clean up was just the last straw.  I still don’t have edging – I know what I want but I haven’t found it yet.  I’m sure when I do, the price will be prohibitive and I’ll have to start over.  Anyway, here’s a picture.  I have to buy a hose bowl to keep the hose in – when we had the pipes under the house replaced with copper they put the faucet in a different place.  It’s convenient to turn off from the porch but it’s not a great flower bed object!  We’d been running the hose through the lavender to the end of the house, but I think until the jasmine gets a lot bigger so it will hide the hose, a bowl is in order.

The foundation air holes (I’m sure there’s a scientific name for them) are particularly unattractive, especially the one with the hole in it.  How did that get there?  Whatever.  The jasmine will eventually grow tall enough to cover them, but for now hopefully you will just admire the foxgloves.  I thought about buying a rain chain to replace the downspout but the one I found is $100 and it occurs to me that it might not work all that well.  We’ll see.

One nice surprise I got as I was struggling to put away all the gardening tools was that I noticed that the plant the lady across the street gave me is blooming again.  Isn’t it beautiful?  I really don’t even know what it is, but the bloom is stunning.

Lydia and Dan live across the street with their son, Kenny, who just graduated from Bellermine.  Dan is a CPA with his own accounting/tax business, Lydia is an LVN.  I remember when Kenny was born!  I don’t think 2 nicer people exist on the planet.  Lydia dug one of the bulbs up and gave it to me a few years ago – I just put it in a pot and it keeps coming up every spring and blooming.  Maybe I should move it to the flower bed under the japanese maple in front.  It matches the door!

Yes, it’s red.  A bit lighter in value than I had pictured but the poor painter had worked so hard and the first color he put on the door was so awful (nearly purple), that I just decided this color was fine.  Ideally, it would be a bit darker, more brick.  But, Husband likes it and it is cheerful.  The neighbor across the street (2 doors up from Dan) who came over on Saturday to ask if I had done all this work by myself (yes), even digging the holes (yes) and brought his dog who promptly pooped in the yard (he cleaned it up) said it was Christmasy!  Whatever.

There are still 2 beds to replant.  The one you see under the maple and the one on the east side of the house. The east bed is going to be a booger – it’s big and very wide from the old roses.  The one by the maple has the remnants of ivy in it…..I brought some killer but haven’t used it yet.  

The crazy thing about Saturday was what got me the most were my feet!  I was wearing some rubber gardening shoes and by the end of the job, I was getting cramps in my right foot and the bottoms of my feet were sore.  The pedicure I got later was the best I ever had – felt wonderful!  My hip joints and shoulders and all the other muscles in my body woke me up about 3am giving me grief for putting them through so much that day, but I’m good today!  Only a little stiff.

Saturday night we had shrimp and coconut rice.  The recipe I found for the rice wasn’t quite right – it was too gummy – I think there was too much coconut milk in proportion to water.  I’ll change that next time. Was good if you didn’t mind the texture – which Husband didn’t!  Then, I made some red, spicy rice today and that was really good – shrimp and lime juice and cilantro – but no cilantro for Husband.  Tried a new frittata recipe – avocado and feta.  Was good but I think I’d like artichoke hearts in place of the avocado. Tonight, it’s fresh mushrooms, peas and tomatoes with creme fraiche sauce over pasta.  Too fattening but too good, especially with such beautiful farmer’s market mushrooms and peas!

Dr appt tomorrow with the cardiologist.  I’ll take him some strawberry/raspberry/basalmic jam – maybe he’ll give us some not bad news!  We’re fine, here.  Just fine.  In fact, we’re better than fine – we’re happy as can be and grateful for every day.