Out to the backyard

It was warm and sunny today – indeed very summery. It was time to get out there and start taking care of everything. I don’t cut down the flower beds in the fall, because I always hope that the “winter interest” of such leftovers will actually be a thing. We have a lot of trees and a LOT of leaves and that is my fall pastime – collecting and piling leaves. So, when spring comes there is a lot of work to do.

Keith worked on fixing the pool cover. It had something wrong with it that made it not close correctly. The automatic pool cover is a most wonderful thing – I don’t believe we would have moved here if it hadn’t already been in place. In addition to really helping keep the pool clean, it gives me peace knowing that no one can just fall in when it is closed. We keep it closed unless we are using the pool. So, its health is important. Keith did some magical things. There was drilling, there way lying on the concrete with a rachet, there was a trip to the hardware store, and voila! It works. Yay Keith!

I was slowly working on cutting down the dead stuff and clearing the way for all the new growth of flowers. My heart was going thumpity thump quite a bit, so I lasted about 6 minutes, then had to go and sit in the shade. Then I’d go again for …. about 6 minutes. Keith came and literally did the (not very heavy) lifting. We spent a long time looking for the hand clippers we always use. Keith asked where we had used them last. Um… last fall? You might as well have asked me to recite the periodic table. (Why chose that analogy? No idea. It just jumped into my mind as something I would like to be able to do, but can NOT.) He looked in the usual places (actually put in their place, put in the general gardening area in the garage, and in the place I usually dump them when I come in the house) and couldn’t find them. I pulled the things I could pull, but was stuck without something to use to cut. I went in and looked. They were so hidden (in the place I usually dump them).

Our daffodils finally came out yesterday. I think of all the many daffodils lining the roads as we bused to Aberystwyth – already out for St. David’s Day March 1. March/May. They both start with M.