
Our Home 2009
Me: I’m so old.
Son: No you’re not. You were just bent over gardening too much this weekend!
ā„
Ok, so this post might have to be something simple. I’m zapped from all the manual labor this weekend. My plants were screaming at me for the last 3 weeks. My roses neededĀ re-pottedĀ and trimmed (Still haven’t decided where their permanent home will be so I bought bigger containers. My Lantanas needed to be put in the ground. My beds needed raked, mulch removed and weeding. It was in the upper 80s all weekend so we usually don’t do anything during the heat of the day. We began in the morning, rested during the day, and went back out in the early evening when it began to cool back down.
Not sure if you can see from the picture to the left, but the landscaper wanted to put in as much as he possibly could. He over-crowded the area. And, I didn’t have any of the plants I wanted. We’ve been working on the left side of the house as well. The tree all the way to the left of the picture has been replaced. The first year, it became home to wasps and hornets. And somehow managed to contract some sort of disease. We’ve since replaced it with a dwarf lilac. This will be its second season. The place I bought it from said it was the only one capable of handling the heat of Zone 9. So, fingers are crossed.

Our Home 2009 different angle
Also, see all those tiny bushes? in the front? Well, I’ve been slowly removing them and replacing them. They stink to high heaven and they seem to like to get and keep mildew, and ants. Plus, there is too much green and not enough color. Way up in the front, you might not be able to see it, but there are African Lilies. Those have never bloomed out of the 3 years we’ve been here.
Not only did we replace the tree (left of the photo) with a Dwarf Lilac, we’ve pulled up about 3 rows of those nasty, stinky bushes. That was last year. In their absence, weeds have taken hold. Fresh, exposed earth and there you go. We’ve not only weeds, but grass. It is a daunting task to keep up with the weeding. We are trying to get some mulch this year, to replace what got washed down the drain during rain storms, while we save up for stone. Plus, it’s easier to plant before I get stone.
Along the back, lining the porch, I want to rip up those bushes and replace them with hedge roses. This year, though, we’ve managed to re-pot my hybrid tea roses. We also purchased some Creeping Lantana for the very front, more for ground cover, where the African Lilies used to be. We haven’t been able to lay much mulch. We only have a car, with limited trunk space. We bought 2 bags of brown mulch on Saturday. We laid that around the Dwarf Lilac and where my potted roses are. It looked really nice. We went back Sunday to buy a few more bags and were stuck getting 4 bags of red mulch. I HATE RED MULCH! Ugh! I don’t want a patchwork flower bed. But, daggum it, we don’t have a truck. I WANT MY STONE!

Beginning Of New Front Yard 2012
So, we still have more mulch to lay, and more work to do. I haven’t bought all the plants just yet. I have to get my hedge roses before June, though. That’s the last time they will ship to my zone until next year. It’s a slow process, but hopefully will be beautiful next year when it’s all done.
So, with that being said, my writing suffered this weekend.
March’s goals:
- Continue with my daily writer-ly duties.Yes and No. Monday through Friday was fine. Between finishing up editing one short story, completing another, and a couple of critiques along the way, I did rather well. However, this weekend, I did not! š I lost two days. Zero work. 2 days without writing in 3 months, though. So I consider that still an amazing accomplishment.
- By March 20th, I would like to complete and submit another story to the 713 Flash call atĀ KazkaPress. Ā Yes and No. I completed editing the short story I wrote last year. Since this month’s prompt reminded me a lot of this short story, I wanted to make a companion piece to it. I completed the 713 short. It’s currently out for crits. Submission is end of day tomorrow. Hopefully, I can manage to submit it tomorrow.
- regular blog posts. Yes. YAY for me, I’m writing today’s blog post.
- I would like to read another book this month. Nope. Still trying to decide what to read next. I would like to read Terry Goodkind’s latest, The Omen Machine. Or Naomi Novik’s latest, Crucible of Gold. But both are $12.99 for the e-book price! (ugh! wish e-books weren’t so pricey!) Only The Omen Machine is out in paperback, at $8.99. Crucible of Gold was released this month, so no paperback yet. I may just have to go and start The Wheel Of Time series, or start back with Artemis Fowl series. I’ve just been so tired to read anything lately.
And we all need to Embrace The Suck! Check out my mugs and T-shirts!
 Men’s & Women’s Ā T-shirt
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 Caffeine Holder |
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