It’s 8pm on Sunday and this is the first time I’ve stepped foot inside the house since about 8AM this morning. I spent 12 hours today, and 12 hours all day yesterday, doing lawn and garden work outside and am purely exhausted. I would be sleeping right now except for the fact that Chris and Melissa just left to go pick up Chinese and I am STARVING.
We expanded the vegetable garden from a 6×10 foot area to a 25×25 foot plot. This required a lot of tilling, digging, picking out of grass clumps and stones and otherwise grooming it to prepare it for the several dozen bags of manure we’ll lay on it next weekend - with plans to have all the veggies in the ground and planted over Memorial Day Weekend. My son, Ben, did the tilling, by the way. My family knows better than to let me anywhere near big machinery like that.
After that was done - I trimmed all the bushes, power washed the front walk and house siding, weeded the landscaped areas surrounding the house, then used the leaf blower to get rid of my weeding and trimming mess.
After that - I mowed the lawn. 2.5 acres.. of course it was with a riding lawn mower, so that was a nice break - but after I was done, my daughter and I raked the entire lawn so we could use the grass clippings to add to the compost bin. I totally should have hooked the bagger attachement on to the mower - but didn’t think of it until I was 3/4 done with the lawn. DUH!
I also planted four rose bushes in the ground - and made a nice little area for them with edging and bark. Hopefuly they’ll grow.
While I was doing all that this weekend - Chris was busy installing a new alarm system on the house that includes various motion sensors and lighting and window and door alarms. He leaves tomorrow morning at 5am and will be gone for the week again. In the last 6 weeks he’s been in: England, Atlanta, Dallas, Chicago, Detroit and this week, he’s in Minneapolis.
Back to the veggie garden - this year we’re doing carrots, onions, various varieties of tomatos, pole beans, cucumbers, broccoli, canteloupe and watermelon. I’m going to try my hand at strawberries, raspberries and blueberries this year - if the birds and squirrels don’t make off with them!
I really never thought we’d get the garden thing done this weekend - much less anything else! I’m sore, sunburnt and starving - and not quite sure my fingernails will ever get completely clean at this point. If they could hurry up with the Sesame Chicken and Shrimp Fried Rice - I would be FOREVER grateful!
I totally can’t wait until Monday when I can go back to work!
1:16 am on May 7th, 2007
All those veggies sound delicious. If they go missing, you can bet it’s not the rodents but ME! HA!!!
A lot of work you did, my friend. Good job.
4:59 am on May 7th, 2007
Weekends are exhausting! I get all my plants on Mother’s Day and get to spend the day planting. Any tips on not wearing myself out completely?
5:59 am on May 7th, 2007
Two thoughts come to mind:
1) You do good work. You are welcome to come MY yard any time!
2) Um, the most I’ve ever gone ‘without stepping inside’ is about 10 hours… how did you, um, you know, without… well I suppose you have that compost, but… Oh never mind…
7:08 am on May 7th, 2007
Jammie - I’ll be hunting you down if my berries go missing! Thanks for the warning lol
Char - Lots of water and a couple teenagers lol
Charlie - if I wasn’t so sore, I’d be happy to do your yard
And yes, I’ll admit that I did step foot in the house a few times to… well…ya know 
7:26 am on May 7th, 2007
Gardening seems fun, but I have no time for it, and I’m a student lol.
1:10 pm on May 7th, 2007
Wow. I thought about mowing this weekend, but put it off once again since we’ve been having 40 - 50 mph winds and it’s probably going to take 5 - 6 hours to mow it with the rider. I’ve added repainting the window trim to the list too, and maybe I’ll start some of the stripping off of the old crap tonight. Then there’s building the Mite a sandbox & swingset, which I’ve just started to lay out. Now I just have to find time to do all of it. The painting’s probably going to be during the week, and maybe the sandbox / swingset will go up over Memorial weekend…
3:08 pm on May 7th, 2007
I’ll mow your lawn — you come down here and build a sandbox and swingset - I want one!
12:18 am on May 8th, 2007
Hey, look! Astro lives!
10:50 pm on May 8th, 2007
That’s up for debate lately… So would Jammie J. also have a nice hat????????
11:05 pm on May 8th, 2007
Jammie has a verrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry nice hat… Mmmmhmmmm.
1:04 pm on May 9th, 2007
In that case, yay! Jammie J lives too!!!!!