Unemployment and Gardening
Unemployment is exhausting.
Monday, my dad came over for lunch, we visited and I made a big lunch. Then he helped me figure out what was wrong with the lights along our front walk. Somewhere in there, I also got us mostly unpacked from Peru, and did a bunch of laundry.
Tuesday, I got up early and went out to my parents Farm to help them move their 3 dozen chickens to fresh digs. Normally my parents do that on their own, but my dad had surgery 2 weeks ago and isn't to lift more than 10 lbs, or do much else. In the evening I went back out to the farm for a dinner gathering my parents were having. In the afternoon, I spent several hours clearing weeds out of my garden because...
On Wednesday my mom came over to help me in my front yard/garden. We cleared a bunch more weeds, planted some mature rhubarb plants she brought me from the farm, transplanted a bunch of pansies from the path into the flower beds, and got a large section of rather shady raised flower bed (where the weeds had killed all the flowers so far as I could tell) almost ready to receive lettuce. I know that doesn't sound like much, but it kept u very busy until it was time to shower and get ready to go to our lecture series down town.
Today, I got a call in the morning from my mom saying she wanted to come out and work with me in my garden today. (It's like gifts from people who want you to start playing FarmVille, only rather more useful...) we did more weeding out front, got the raised bed the previous owners left ready to go, planted some stuff, and determined that even though I only purchased $14 of plant starts from my brother, I didn't have room for them all. I pointed out the pile of dirt where the previous owners had clearly had another raised bed, and my mom was all, "let's build another raised bed around that dirt." So we did. We built it out of the gate that used to go between the house and the tool shed (previous owners took down the tool shed, but left the gate). On a previous day, my mom had come by and disassembled the gate, because she's awesome like that. And she insisted that I keep the screws, because she is a little crazy like that. Well, we were happy to have the wood from the gate and the screws from the gate today. We were able to build the whole thing out of gate pieces. We also planted the lettuce, and my mom pointed out that I had volunteer spinach plants in one of the planters from my balcony garden 2 years ago. Fortunately, I have plenty of space in the shady part of my garden. After my mom left, I went to Home Depot and purchased various things, like composted manure to finish filling the new raised bed (the existing dirt more than half filled it), plant food (my mom says the manure is more useful for next year than this year), slug poison, mulch (we've been mulching with last year's maple leaves, but they are basically used up), parts to repair the broken hose, and a hydrangea, since I've got plenty of space for things that tolerate shade.
Josh finally got home a little while ago, so I am sitting here slacking while he makes dinner. I am utterly exhausted. And I haven't even started on any of the projects I was going to work on during my two weeks off. Though I have done a decent bit of shopping. I have towel rods coming tomorrow, paint for the front door, another pull out shelf to install in the pantry.
Tomorrow I go up to Tacoma to see my middle nephew perform in "The Tempest." And then back to Portland on the first train of the morning to attend a friends birthday hike and game night.
Whew.
On Sunday, maybe I will sleep. Or perhaps dig some blackberries.
And now, pictures...
Here's the new raised bed. Josh wants us to rotate it to run parallel to the other raised bed. Which would be nice... but we'll see how he feels about helping me move the 10 or so cubic feet of soil already in it after dinner. I don't want to wait real long to get my plants in the ground.
Lettuces in the afternoon shade.
Once I get this area cleared, I'm going to try planting quinoa in this area that gets a bit less afternoon shade. (I'll plant it amid the irises, rose, and whatever those things in the middle are.)
My poor rhubarb in it's almost full sun corner of the flower garden is hiding under an Amazon box trying not to die of the recent transplant.
And now, do I own any hand lotion? Never use the stuff, but I think gardening will require me to start!
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