Sunday, April 6, 2014

Yardwork

Yesterday I spent from 9:30 AM to 6:30 PM (with only two short breaks:  one for lunch and one to put supper in the oven) working in my flower beds.  Before I began, our flower beds looked like overgrown jungles.  The mulch was almost gone, the beds were covered in leaves and weeds, lots of big clumps of weeds, and my shrubbery and monkey grass had grown completely out of control.

I had a lot of work to do.  And of course, I thought I could do it all in one day!  I was wrong.  I have two beds in the front of our house, two in the back, one small one in the front yard, and two gigantic ones on one side our our house.  One of those gigantic ones is actually enormous!  It is actually two huge beds with a walkway between them.  So what did I get accomplished yesterday?

All shrubs trimmed in the two front beds and the two (really three) side yard beds.
All monkey grass trimmed (by hand, using scissors) in those same beds.
All trimmings, leaves, debris, etc., hauled off with the wheelbarrow down to our "mulch pile".
20 bags of mulch spread out in the two front beds.

And I am so sore I can hardly walk around!  I feel like I ran a marathon!

I don't have another full day to devote to yard work in the near future, so the rest of the work will have to be done in 30 minute to 1 hour intervals, as I have time each day.

This afternoon I plan to complete my presentation on home and homeschool organization and planning, that I will give this Thursday night.  I have worked on it a little bit here and there, but today is the day that I plan to finalize it.  I will blog my notes when I finish.

P.S.  I realize that if you don't live in the south, you may not know what monkey grass is.  I have the variegated kind that grows in clumps, not the dark green kind that spreads and serves as a ground cover if you don't keep it pruned.  The official name for the monkey grass that I have is called liriope muscari.


P.P.S.  Nothing in my garden has sprouted yet.  My cabbage and broccoli plants are growing, but nothing that I planted from seeds is showing any sign of life.

2 comments:

  1. Wow! Yesterday I ran and then came home to work in one of our flower beds--hauling out the leaves/'trash' and spreading fresh mulch--which has been in a pile in another bed all winter long! I only worked for a couple of hours (would've worked longer but needed to cook dinner!) but between that and the run I was so tired last night that I soaked in the bath and went to bed early! I love the look variegated liriope and would like to plant some to border two of our beds--we have some non-variegated monkey grass in the bed on the east side of our house. I'll be working in hour-long increments for the rest of this month to get everything here in shape for summer--and hopefully will also plant a few new plants as well.

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    1. Hi Polly, I began my day with a 4 mile run. I had great intentions of going to bed early…..I got in my bed at 9:28, but instead of turning the light out, I foolishly began reading my new issue of Runner's World. It had all sorts of stories about Boston….and I could not stop myself from reading them. And then I was all stressed and could not sleep. And then I read one more article, ironically about how runners in general do not get enough sleep--ha! The elite runners all sleep from 8-10 hours a night and take up to 2 hour naps each day. So….once again, I did not get enough sleep! :) I am setting a goal of getting 7 hours each night. I have slept 5-6 hours a night for years, and I think it is taking its toll on me.

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