Where There's a Will There's a Way

This is starting to sound like a geriatric blog :) I promise that it will only last until I am back to normal. I think that maybe I can be of some help to the many older readers who come here to follow me. As we age, we all lose some of our ability to do the things we love. Today as I was resting at lunch, Joe asked, "What did you think...that you could do gardening forever?" I had to think about this for a few minutes...and then I thought, "Well, yes I did." As long as I am able to do some things...I intend to do them. I will have to find an easier way for most everything. I've had to do that in the house...and I'll do it outside too. There are new tools being invented all the time for us older folks. If a company would ask if I would like to be a guinea pig and try out new products I would jump at the chance. I am something of an inventor, when it comes to jerry rigging tools for myself. I can figure out ways to use tools in more ways than they were intended. For instance...that tomato cage trellis that I made last year. I consider my green plastic chair a gardening tool. I have 3 of them in various places in the yard. I use these to sit on, when I have a lot of weeds to pull.

I can remember my old neighbor, Ruth, reclining in her flower bed to do the weeding when she was my age. I would look out the window and see her down on her side reaching for weeds. She couldn't get on her knees anymore, but this wonderful gardener wouldn't give up. She did, however, make things easier as time went on.

I worked outside for most of the day yesterday. I figured out how to do a few more things. Golly...I feel like a cripple out there. I took my lawn cart to the woods and also my lightweight rake, my grabber, and my fiskar clippers. I found that I could clip the tough stems of last year's plants and then lightly rake them into piles and between the grabber and the rake...I can pick up the piles and put them in the lawn cart to be dumped. It took me longer, but in a way I was much more careful...not damaging the plants in any way.

I sat awhile on my bench and watched birds going in and out of the bird houses. Those sassy little wrens aren't back yet. The warm weather is so early this year...I wonder if birds have a certain body schedule that tells them when to return. In past years the wrens are here about May 1st.

I noticed hummingbirds in my pine trees. It looked like they were sampling something off the pine boughs...maybe sap? I put my feeders out early, but I haven't seen any activity there yet.

I placed an order yesterday for tomato plants. We always seem to have the same types of tomato plants for sale year after year in our town......so I decided to try some heirloom tomatoes. I'm having the big trellis moved from the woods up to the back of the house. I'm planning on putting it in between my two large containers and let the tomatoes be tied to the trellis as they grow. The cherry tomato will be in my herb garden, in a container. The last tomato will be on the corner in the back near the water supply. Hopefully we will have better luck with our tomatoes than last year.

Well, I have to get going. I'm making a corn casserole for a funeral luncheon at Church this morning. Have a great day!

Balisha