July? JULY??!
The last thing I remember, it was April and it was springtime in DC and the flowers were all in bloom. And now I find it's July 1, summer has arrived along with Dead Baby Bird Season,* and my entire yard is one giant weedy disaster. What happened?
I guess May and June can be considered lost months: without going into detail, they were filled with unexpected events and challenges and traveling and trucks. But in the end, all was well, and even really good. Successful moves, happy weddings, well-deserved and long-denied raises -- these all came together to make the rest of the mess worthwhile. Except perhaps for the multiple air travel horrors. Let us not speak of them except to say Delta Airlines is made of pure evil.
So now Mulch Boy and I are back home and joining everyone else in welcoming summer. We'll begin this weekend by installing** our new pool, lying in the sun trying to give our pasty Irish and German skins a little color, smoking beef ribs in MB's new smoker, and grilling every piece of meat in the house. Those last two tasks are Mulch Boy's, as he is the chief cook in our palace. My contribution to the meal will likely be pouring beverages and toasting marshmallows.***
Although I won't be doing the cooking, I DO hope to begin getting the yard back into shape, emphasis on "begin." We have a LOT of beds, and they are hopelessly taken over by weeds. It will take a lot of digging to get them back into shape.
The worst, sadly, is the vegetable garden. Oh, the high hopes we had this spring. I had started all my lovely seedlings in my new little basement garden with the little grow lights, and it was looking like success. Alas, life intervened, and the sad little seedling are dried up and dead, never having made it into the lovingly prepared ground. The only thing we got planted were the seed potatoes, and so they and the volunteer cherry tomatoes that surprised us this spring are all we've got going this year. And they are being slowly strangled by the incredibly successful crop of weeds that have taken over.
I think that's where I'll start: the vegetable garden. I owe it to Mulch Boy. He was very disappointed about the seedlings, and that I never got seeds into the ground. Time to get out the knee pad and rescue what little veg we've got. Back to work!
*Running concurrently with early summer is Dead Baby Bird Season, when all those little fledglings leave the nest, apparently to be killed in our backyard by squirrels or cats. The garden assistants like to find their sad little corpses and roll in them. I hate Dead Baby Bird Season.
**i.e., inflating.
***Giant-sized marshmallows. They are at least twice the size of regular marshmallows. They are the best invention of the 21st century so far.
I guess May and June can be considered lost months: without going into detail, they were filled with unexpected events and challenges and traveling and trucks. But in the end, all was well, and even really good. Successful moves, happy weddings, well-deserved and long-denied raises -- these all came together to make the rest of the mess worthwhile. Except perhaps for the multiple air travel horrors. Let us not speak of them except to say Delta Airlines is made of pure evil.
So now Mulch Boy and I are back home and joining everyone else in welcoming summer. We'll begin this weekend by installing** our new pool, lying in the sun trying to give our pasty Irish and German skins a little color, smoking beef ribs in MB's new smoker, and grilling every piece of meat in the house. Those last two tasks are Mulch Boy's, as he is the chief cook in our palace. My contribution to the meal will likely be pouring beverages and toasting marshmallows.***
Although I won't be doing the cooking, I DO hope to begin getting the yard back into shape, emphasis on "begin." We have a LOT of beds, and they are hopelessly taken over by weeds. It will take a lot of digging to get them back into shape.
The worst, sadly, is the vegetable garden. Oh, the high hopes we had this spring. I had started all my lovely seedlings in my new little basement garden with the little grow lights, and it was looking like success. Alas, life intervened, and the sad little seedling are dried up and dead, never having made it into the lovingly prepared ground. The only thing we got planted were the seed potatoes, and so they and the volunteer cherry tomatoes that surprised us this spring are all we've got going this year. And they are being slowly strangled by the incredibly successful crop of weeds that have taken over.
I think that's where I'll start: the vegetable garden. I owe it to Mulch Boy. He was very disappointed about the seedlings, and that I never got seeds into the ground. Time to get out the knee pad and rescue what little veg we've got. Back to work!
*Running concurrently with early summer is Dead Baby Bird Season, when all those little fledglings leave the nest, apparently to be killed in our backyard by squirrels or cats. The garden assistants like to find their sad little corpses and roll in them. I hate Dead Baby Bird Season.
**i.e., inflating.
***Giant-sized marshmallows. They are at least twice the size of regular marshmallows. They are the best invention of the 21st century so far.
Welcome back! My garden, too, has suffered in my absence. Too hot now to do anything but water it.
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