This Side of Death

[cineater]

So close!  The parks came to pick up the final load and we got everything in but 5 flats.  Total bedding plant count donated to the county parks is 1421.  It included a variety of annuals and native perennials.  Plants were also donated:  a truck bed full of daylilies, 4 bags of Lambs Ear, 3 burlap bags of canna lilies, 5 bags of Soapwort.  Pervious milkweed total 998.  Well over 2500 plants to the county parks.

Somebody, some where is going to take those numbers and assign a dollar value to it.  As long as they don't cut it out of the parks budget next year, because I don't promise anything.  Every year I say I probably won't do as much next year and then I top it.  I can remember when I thought 244 was a good amount.     How do you assign a dollar value to a plot of milkweed when it's a lifeline?

So I go back to collecting seeds.  This will be the first year I will also do a group of plants they can plant in the fall.

[cineater]

Happy Mother's Day to all it applies.  The rest of you mothers, call your mom, don't be a dick. 

I spent the morning working on the brick paths.  This woman can throw down some brick!  I'll have it done by the time the rest of them show up on Wednesday.  Can't say I'm a real good brick layer but I can boho it.     Both mornings I got up there by 6:30, worked till noon.  It's nice with nobody around except the deer.  Jim needs to install 3 more beds for me tomorrow and cut a few bricks and I can finish up.

Almost recovered from the shoveling and wheel barrows.  Legs still a little shaky and the knees are shot.  Nice to be down on the ground crawling around on my hands and knees.     Running a little bit hard.  Need to relax back into my stride.  Only 3 of my gardens to get to.  Finished up moms yesterday.  I'm done with her, you have to dynamite to dig a hole in her rock clay soil.  I got out my pick ax.  Made short work of that.   

Anyway, I'm enjoying my day.  Hope all the mom's are too. 

[cineater]

Finished up all my plantings and beds on Tuesday.  Jim and I got the renovation team ready to work today.  I got there at 5:55 to finish up the bricks.  6:10 I get a text from Sandy at how beautiful the clouds were.  She was up partying all night.  Yeah the clouds were interesting, I was appreciating them but no way am I stopping what I'm doing to chat with a drunk who's high.  The text just continued from there.  People you know it's a workday.  No way am I talking off my gloves to play with the phone.  By 3 Sandy was texting to see if I was a live.  Trying not to be.     I'm exhausted and trying to get a power nap.

Anyway, here's picture before I finished the floors and cleaned up.  That little white bed and that big bed in the back on the left need to be finished filling up.  I'm back on wheelbarrows.  Two of the trellises have gone away for repairs.  They come back next Wednesday or Saturday.  I'll have the beds filled and we will be done.  Except Kristine wants to add 4 more beds and two more floors.  Great, I don't have to move the extra dirt and brick all the way across campus.  I'll probably help her at some point.  She has the same kind of drive I do to finish a project so she may get it done before I recover, fingers crossed.   

Geez that's a big picture.

[cineater]

The bus pulls up from the retirement home for a garden tour.  Half of them have walkers.     Give them the option of the hard surface tour, politically correct for you aren't getting off the parking lot.  And the 4H rabbit club was meeting so we had a bunny break.  Funist tour I've done in a while.

That retirement home is looking better all the time.     You get your own space, people your own age and a cafeteria.  It's like living in the dorm.     Those walker have seats!  The bus was like the party bus, roomy, cool and drinks.  They left us headed for lunch out.  Seriously thinking I should have just stowed away on that.   

Heat ran us out of the garden.  I didn't show up till 8 this morning.  The crew left me with about 10 wheelbarrows to fill up the remaining bed renovations.  Not doing that until the weekend.  Beka showed up with 5 flats of bedding plants.  Got her bird garden done but we'll have to do the rest Saturday in the Iris garden, the sun's out.  And a mum donation showed up.  I know where those are going but still the sun is out and it's already 85.  Head home to collapse on the couch only to realize we forgot to close the gate to the fruit garden.  I'll beat the deer to it before dusk.  Sorry guys that's not the cafeteria.  Almost through getting the gardens up and running.  No idea where in the world the band is.  My goal is to beat them to Europe and be sitting on my ass watching the tour.   

[cineater]

Tornado in St Louis.  Looks like it started in Clayton went down St Louis Ave through the Central West End.  Mostly trees down and windows blown out.  A few buildings damaged.  Early reports say it's not that bad, no injuries so far.  Power out everywhere.  Didn't get much notice on that one.



That got worse.  Houses leveled and people in the ER.

[cineater]

EF3 and five people dead.  My daughter had an appointment down there, fortunately she followed it in.  Had no idea.  I called to tell her but she wasn't sure where she was going or knew the area I was talking about.  Took her an hour to get back out once she started driving into down trees.

Woohoo, I'm done with installing bricks!  All the house plants are outside and I'm onto clean up week.  Won't be that bad.  I've done a lot of prep work.  And it bugs me so what I should put off for another day, I push it through.  I'm getting close to done.

[cineater]

Woohoo, the parks is coming to pick up their last load.  Tracy says they hope to be done planting by the end of the week.  What works best for them is newspaper containers.  Drill a hole, drop in and go.  Newspaper is hard to come by but I've got a couple of sources.  Tedious work but they are easy to make.  Something to do in the heat of the summer.  In the meantime though, I have my driveway and garage back.   

[cineater]

No less then 4 roundabouts in a one mile section.  I was taking the first right each time going there but coming back I got almost the full circle, wee.   On the last one, I got off one exit too early, where am I?  Damn, almost mastered it!  Little fun with the car. 

Yesterday I spent 4 hours washing up pots and flats.  Had just emptied my wash tubs and the neighbor comes over to return hers.      Okay fine, the parks still have to return theirs.  Dropping off plants to the park today and they fill up my trunk with pots!     I'm not unloading that.  I just got my garage back in order.  They can just stay in the trunk until I need groceries.   

I'm on 10 wheelbarrows of wet clay dirt until that big pile is gone.  Accomplished that Monday, blew it off yesterday and got there at 7 today to crank them out.  Kevin got tied up with the watering system so he never got to bring over the pull along behind the tractor.  Could have made up for yesterday but now it's looking like I'll have it out of there before he shows up next Wednesday.   

[cineater]

[cineater]

Clean up week is over.  Came in 2 days ahead of schedule.     My 10 wheelbarrows a day turned into 18 yesterday.    Not sure how that works but somehow those wheelbarrows got fuller as I went.  There's still a pile of dirt and bricks but we are using that in phase two of the Herb Garden renovation in June.  Demo gardens, home gardens and mom's gardens all up to just needing to be maintained.  I even clean my carpets.  I'm done, it's now time to play.   

[cineater]

The parks thanked us for all the plants.  That's my driveway on load two.  And the truck bed load of daylilies.   
https://www.instagram.com/p/DJwdq60vGKH/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Really, it's pretty much all my effort.  I'm having fun.  Doing it for the bugs.   

[cineater]

Gone and done.  Couldn't walk away from clean up week with a pile of bricks sitting there.  There's something relaxing about sitting there with a chisel and a hammer and breaking apart bricks.  Still have a couple of places I'd like to mow down other people haven't got to but it's raining again.

Wow, that's two that have come back to life.  First little boy and now an internet friend I thought I had lost a couple of years ago.  Both put a smile on my face I wasn't expecting.

The sign on my way home said, even Jesus rested.  I'll take that as a sign it's okay if I spend the rest of the day on the couch.  

Changed my mind and got those places mowed down after the rain passed through.

[cineater]

Proof of reincarnation. 

[cineater]

Brick wall!  It's been days probably a good two weeks I've been riding my drive to get things done.  I got to my garden at 5:30 this morning.  Fired up the gas trimmer because I love that thing and followed it around the last remaining section.  By 9:30 I had to sit down.    My crew is just rolling in, looking at me like are you working today.  I've already got 4 hours on you guys and you're only working 3.  I thought another cup of coffee and I'd be back up and running but no.  My hands are stuck in the holding something position.  I'm done working, spent the next 3 hours directing traffic and I don't think I'm going back tonight.

Don't you hate that?  You've got your energy going and the more you do the more you can do and then zap, you're drained.  Had a good long run though.  That was fun.    I'm kind of on break until June 6th when we have another project starting up.  I've got my eye on the daylilies in the meantime.  When do they not need weeding and I can sit on the ground!

[cineater]

Anybody remember Animal Crackers, the cookies?  The grandbaby loves them.  I have to admit they are quite tasty.  They go with coffee or a coke.  Of course you have to check out which animal you're eating at the time.  Study it while your devouring the one your chomping on.  Play with your food if you like.  Let me clarify that, only when you're entertaining the grandbaby or nobody sees you at your desk running the zebra across it.   

[cineater]

I go to take the recycling out and there's something sitting on my driveway.  Roll by and it's a baby bird.  He's just standing there in the rain, soaking wet, looking up into the sky.  Never moves even when I come back to take his picture.


So I do this,


A little later I check on him and he's moved and moves his mouth at me.  And a little later he was gone.  Maybe that was a thank you.  

[cineater]

The bee hives sit 10 feet off the daylily path with their backs facing it.  I noticed last night that the woods have grown up in front of the hives.  This means the guard bees start to protect the backside since it is more exposed.  They were in bed last night when I was weeding the area closest to them.  I went back this morning to lay down the mulch.  They tolerated me but eventually had enough and chased me back to the car.  So close to being done it that area, just needed to spread the mulch out I put down.  Went down to the end of the path and weeded there for a while so they could calm down.

I'm going to have to go back up there, they've got my wheelbarrow.  The beekeeper is due so and that's really going to piss them off plus I want to finish off that section.  I can walk up to where the tree hangs over the path.  That's the beginning of their protection zone.  From here I'm going to try crawling, spreading out the mulch as I go.  Worked but now I have to do the otherside of the daylilies and the wheelbarrow is on the path.  Slip around that and drop down.  Wood chips hutt my knees so now I'm on my belly, reaching ahead of me as far as I can.  Finish, jump up, grab my wheel barrow and hussle my ass down the path.   

[cineater]

I told my daughter I had her son at the splash pad today.  She was worried he would give his cold to the other kids.  Told her he wasn't coughing and some of those kids were brats.  She replied, oh my.  Told her I had to tell one kid twice to quit shooting him in his face with the squirt gun.  She told me to punch the kid.     I replied, oh my.

Reported the bees to the beekeeper.  One of them started harassing me the moment I got out of the car.  Slipped around the building and was able to weed from the other end until Kevin showed up.  He started spraying the deer repellant, god is that a nasty smell.  I was going to take a break but Kevin came hustling up with a bee following him.  Stung him right below the eye.  I lost my compulsion right then and there to finish that project.    Dangerous and smelly job.

[cineater]

How cute is that for Odin to give his dad on Father's Day?

[cineater]

The over 20 hours I spent mulching the trees and in the daylily bed is about to be washed away by a flash flood.    I hope the bees will be okay.  I do good work if you get a chance to see it.

I was just dozing off on the couch when there was a loud clap of thunder, the NOAA weather radio went off followed by the tornado sirens.  Small tornado by my friend Susan.  We didn't even have storm warnings till that blew through.  Soft rain all day, kind of lovely except the mold levels were kicking my ass.