Gardening

(Click on the links on the right for various pictures taken at different dates)

As hard as it is for me to come out and say it, I must... I AM A GARDENER!

Disturbing isn't it?  Forever I have thought as no doubt many of you have that males interested in floura and fauna must inevitably have other less than masculine virtues.  I pray this is not the case.

My wife being on bed rest and unable to keep up the house, make dinners, mow the lawns, wash the cars and such has given rise to myself being involved in all of the previously mentioned items and a HOST of others too sensitive to mention.  I will save the whole bed rest travesty for another day and time.

After making the house habitable I gazed out the back window to my yard which had fallen into decay.  A fence had blown down, crab grass had taken over any prior flower beds, large portions of formerly green lawn were parched earth, litter was scattered about, tattered plants tilted at crazy angles crusty and dry, trees were overgrown and ugly and on and on.  Suffice it to say that my back yard looked like Gettysburg must have looked shortly after the great war of the same name, minus the bodies of course (there might have been some but I was unable to find them).

My resolve was high, my energy strong, my passions raging and firmly I strode into that yard purposing to make it a better place, little knowing the many hours yeah days of labor and even finances this would entail.

Looking back I see that I was foolhardy.  "Fools walk in where angels fear to tread" I believe the maxim states and I was that fool.  The angels knew better.

I will not punish the few and faithful readers with a full account of my endevours but I will list a few in an effort to justly convey my toils.

I began by fixing my sprinklers.  This was a former passion of mine that was somewhat rekindled.  I ended up replacing all but two of my nine valves AND the control box.  It was troublesome but I can scarcely describe to you my raw joy upon seeing them activate at 5:00 in the evening.  There is a litle hum, and slight click and then the water begins to flow.

I also fixed two of my "chik, chik, chik" sprinkers (you know the kind, the ones that are lively and entertaining, not dull and stationary).  I found that their little spring thingies had become detatched from the other thingy so I reconnected the one to the other and all was right in the world.

I tilled and mucked out my three flower beds, hauling many trash cans of yard poo to predefined dump spots.

I ran soaker hoses around the edge of my fences and set them up with timers for automatic watering.

I purchased and installed a four hose attachment doohicky to my water faucet so I could run the two timers and a manual watering hose from one place.

I mucked out my waterfall (a disgusting process which I prefer not to relate) and found to my great delight that the two-year old pump thingy still worked.  I connected it all back together, ran an extension cord (with a silicon, rubbery tape stuff wrapped at the connection for insulation) and was in business.

I cut the dead and dried out leaves and limbs from trees and bushes and cast them away.

I pulled MANY weeds.

I watered and still water daily both automatically and manually.

I added bark to my front flower bed.

I planted a weird-looking, white-flowered bush to my front flowerbed.

I planted two palm trees, a purple-colored leaf tree, a medium-sized flowering plant of some kind, twenty-four different small flowering plants ranging from marigolds to daisies (like the dog) to petunias, a rose bush, many plant bulps, a huge variety of flower seeds and other things to numerous to mention.

I started a farm.  Well, I started a plant farm, not an animal farm.  There are no pigs, cows or goats involved as yet but there are a LOT of vegetables.

I planted radishes, carrots, turnips, onions, two kinds of squash, green beans, peas, watermelons, cantaloupes, cucumbers, tomatoes, bell peppers, brocolli, corn, sunflowers, okra and the world's largest pumpkins.

Logan found a package of pumpkin seeds at the store called "Mighty Max" with a picture on the front of a small child leaning against pumpkin which towered over his slight frame.  Logan eagerly brought it to me and I casually tossed it into the basket little knowing that they were indeed "mightly".  It seemed that every one of these seeds I planted came up and thrived... soon I was pulling them out as they were too close together.  They began so cute and innocent... little green leaves blinking their eyes bashfully at the sun, wincing at its brightness.  But now, oh my, they are on their way to becoming "Mighty Maxes".  They aren't bashful or innocent and don't wince.  They have an arrogance about them.  They shove things smaller than them about.  They are rude AND I LIKE THEM A LOT!

My corn is large and growing larger, the sunflowers are fantastic, the peas and green beans are great, the squash is decent, the tomatoes proud, the lettuce is somehow scattered and growing everywhere, the radishes, turnips and carrots are carpet-like and the rest are dead.  Not sure why, but they are all dead or perhaps they never started.

But back to my list of things that have changed in the yard.

I added a fence to keep my lawn maintenance people (as I am my own gardener I refuse to label someone else the same) from running through the flower beds with their mowers as they were prone to do.

I faithfully watered my desert plant until I found out that I was killing it and so stopped and watched it thrive.

I trimmed my peach tree which is now COVERED with peaches.

I trimmed my plum tree which had three plums all year and were terribly sour.

I talked very very urgently to my gardeners when my HUGE fruitless mulberry tree fell apart and made my yard once again look like poo.

Really... my trees split assunder shedding limbs weighing many hundreds of pounds in various directions, narrowly avoid my flower beds, water faucets and other trees.  I was very happy about this until my lawn-maintenance people while cutting down the remaining branch dropped it neatly into my flower bed crushing, killing and maiming my tender blossoms.  I was not happy.

I also painted my bathroom red (not really sure why I threw this in here but I wanted you to know about it).

Photos are available by clicking on the links on the right.