Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real

{pretty}

a disoriented bird lets me take her picture.

{happy}

My niece comes over with baby Lilian for a newborn session.  

{funny}

boys aren't that helpful when it comes to cardboard.

{real}

rain, rain...please please STAY.

Earlier in the week I made it my goal to get cardboard down in the garden for weed control.  With all the rain we have been having, everything is sprouted- including the weeds!  (And about a million baby tomato plants from all those rotten tomatoes last year.)  Every year I go dumpster diving for cardboard- and then lay it all out- and then cover it all up so it doesn't blow away...and every year I think to myself I should stop being a cheapskate and just buy the black paper stuff already.  The cardboard will eventually decompose-which can be either a good thing OR a bad thing, depending on how you look at it.  The boys started out helping- and just when you were about to be impressed with how hard Judah was working- he would plow into the cardboard, giggling all the while.

Yesterday, hearing rain was in the forecast- I forced myself to finish the last of the plantings.  I say FORCED because this was after having company (the tidying and food prep that THAT entails), spending hours sorting things from our barn and bringing them to the house in preparation for a yard sale this Saturday and getting as much laundry washed and dried on the line as I could possibly muster.    All I REALLY wanted to do after supper was put my feet up.  I planted turnips, cantaloupe, carrots, the second planting of corn...and by the time I got to the parsnips it was more a scattering of seeds like you would a wildflower garden.  I SO didn't care at that point.

I will not plant another thing.

We didn't expand the main garden at all this year- but it seems to be a case of the widows oil and flour jugs.  No matter how much I plant, there is still ROOM.  I never intended to plant watermelons, cantaloupes, turnips OR parsnips this year- but I could let the space go to waste.  Even now, there is plenty of space for a few more things- which I should fill, but won't.   I am just sick of planting.  I want the next thing I do in the garden is to be taking OUT- not putting in.  

I am positive all this extra space is because of the four foot (square foot style) rows with walkways in between.  That is the ONLY difference.  But it makes sense.  You can plant MUCH more in squares than rows and you need less space for walking when you do it every four feet instead of every row.

And today?  It is gray and wet and wonderfully dreary.   There is nothing so wonderful after a month of intense outdoor chores, than a good dreary day to putz around inside.  I still have plenty to do, but the slow and steady plunking of rain and the darkened rooms can't help but make you feel like you can take your time  on them.