I Did Some Gardening Today

I went out to the mailbox to mail some letters and felt the warmer air. The sun was shining a little and the dried brown gardens were calling my name. I went into the house and got my clothes changed and went back out to find my trusty green chair. With pruners in hand and carrying the chair, I found my way to the Clematis trellis. I sat and pruned them and pulled the jute out of my pocket and tied the vines up ...spreading them out so they covered the whole trellis. I did the four clematis on the side of the house and then went on to the back yard and did the same with the new one...planted a year and a half ago. I thought....hmmmm I still have some energy left maybe I can do the sedums. They had grown to over three feet tall last year and were left for winter interest. I cut the dead stalks off nearly filling my cart. A trip to the pile in the woods was next. I have two clematis on the trellis back there, but left that until next time...I had forgotten my pruners and didn't want to go back up to the house. Dumping the cart, I looked around and noticed things sprouting up out of the ground. The mole tunnels were soft and caved in a bit, when I walked on them. I checked the spot where I had just buried Tweety by St. Francis and found that no animal had dug the little box up. Coming back up the incline to the house, I thought about this year. I had been wondering if I was going to be able to garden as much this year.I find that every year gets worse for me. I can't accomplish what I used to and it makes me so mad sometimes. After today, I guess that I will be able to...if I do it a little each day. Joe called me in for lunch. He had warmed up homemade 15 bean soup. It tasted so good...hot soup when I was chilled. We got the kitchen tidied and went in to watch a movie. We both snoozed a bit before the movie...as usual for us. The movie, 'A Single Man' wasn't very good, but we finished it. After the movie I said that I was going out to trim some stragglers off the yews in the front. We didn't get them trimmed late last fall, so now it had to be done. I had left the mums all through the winter again. I found that by leaving the whole plant undisturbed...I had good luck with them coming back again. I think that this is a natural mulch and keeps the cold wind off of them and the snow piles on top and provides insulation. As I trimmed the mums, I could see new growth down near the ground. I didn't remove any fallen leaves, however...they are still covered and cozy under their blanket. The kids next door came over and helped me pick up branches again. We gathered the branches and rolled the lawn cart back to the pile in the woods. They had so much fun...such imaginations young kids have. They pretended that they were wheeling a patient into surgery and Audra laid the patient out on my bench and operated.They did the 'mole stomp' on the way back up to the house. They stomp on the mole tunnels and try to wake him up. By now, I was getting cold and so were they. It was time to go in the house. We had a lot of fun working together and as they left we said our usual...

'See you later alligator.'

Balisha