Saturday, April 24, 2010

Watering by moonlight


I did not get to spend as much time in the yard today as I hoped. The first large task of the day was taking the car in for servicing. As it turned it, it was getting on time to replace the timing belt, balancer shaft belt, and water pump. I am so grateful that yesterday was payday. I was at the dealer's for somewhere between four and five hours.

Fortunately, I took a good book to read: Simon Singh's Big Bang. Singh's writing reminds me so much of my astronomy professor in college, whom students adored. He assumes the reader is intelligent but knows little or nothing about the history of cosmological thought. So he provides a tour of that history, very easily readable, and one gains a sense of how we got from Eratosthenes to today. The principles of astronomy and physics are explained simply along the way with helpful illustrations. I only got about a third of the way through the book and know it will take me a long time to reach the end, but based on what I have read today I commend it to anyone who is interested.

I then headed to Trader Joe's to do grocery shopping and Home Depot for more compost and mulch. I went home and planted three more sections of the garden, then headed out to Lowe's for more compost and a look at their plants. I came home with herbs to plant in the two huge pots I bought a week ago. Then I planted around the cherry tree and watered the yard. The sun had set when I returned from Lowe's and by the time I finished watering the moon was high overhead, the solar lights in the garden were all on, and it was almost dark.

No time to take photos today but I promise I will take them tomorrow.

The blue and purple flowers are in now, along with the yellow flowers at the base of the yellow Lady Banks rose that is going to blossom tomorrow, just in time for my brunch guests. The orange and white flowers were looking at me reproachfully but their turn will come tomorrow.

Now it is on to laundry, some kitchen cleaning, a bite for supper, and assessing my aching body, soil-encrusted fingers, and scratches from rose thorns. Quite gratifying, actually. I am going to cut myself some slack and move the ironing to the guest room where it can hide until I have time and energy for it.

That's today's story and I'm sticking to it.

--the BB

1 comment:

Ellie Finlay said...

"I am going to cut myself some slack and move the ironing to the guest room where it can hide until I have time and energy for it."

Ha! Don't I get it. You should just see my guest room!