April showers bring lots of yard work

It's amazing how many things there are to do that keep you away from writing. Procrastination is a bad habit but it always seems like there are other, more important, things that you can think of to take care of right away. At the moment, I am not working at a job. I say it this way because my largest preoccupations seem to be housework and yardwork and, if you don't think that's working, you've obviously never done it yourself.

Saturday dawned bright, sunny and warm for a change. We quickly leashed up the dog and went on the hunt for garage sales. I say "we" because my hubby joined me -- garage sales are always a good incentive. What started out as a 15-minute walk turned into 75 minutes as we kept spotting more brightly coloured signs the further we strolled. I think everyone was so happy that the weather god's were smiling that they immediately pulled all their old junk out of storage and tacked up a poster at the closest intersection.

When we got home, I started doing that thing that gardener's do. I stopped to admire the way my "lawn" garden was looking. This led to inspecting the garden beds which progressed to turning the soil and pulling up dandelions. Next came the inevitable doggie doo disposal, cutting back the remaining bushes and throwing down some Miracle Grow. I have already done the horrible clipping back of the raspberry canes (a thorny job, even with gloves). Rose bushes, still to come.

My friends say that I love to garden. What I say is that I love to have a garden -- the actual upkeep and maintenance are not exactly fun. It's like housework, you can't just leave it because the situation only gets worse. And, unlike your home, all your neighbours can see if you're being lazy -- there's no way to hide it. There are always unwanted visitors, of the human and in-human kind. 

All the photos here are of my early blooming plants. Believe me, there are more to come. My gardening style is planned chaos -- I like to plant things that grow and spread. I also adopted the garden I have now, so there is some established growth that I would have avoided. Like the seven different fruit trees and the ever-spreading raspberries. If I made jam, this would all be lovely but usually, I'm just stuck with fruit that I try to pawn off on willing relatives. I've been in this house for almost 6 years now, so the gardens (all 15 of them) are pretty full. So what do I do? Start working on my Uncle Bob's and my mother-in-law's.

Maybe I do love gardening or maybe I'm just a glutton for punishment. But the next time someone says, "you have lots of time, you're not working", I'll hand them a pitchfork and tell them to dig in.