March 21, 2012

Spring Yard Cleanup

Wild white indigo in the meadow

Saturday was such a golden day, the oaks sporting new soft golden leaves and the front porch rockers wearing coats of golden pollen. Rob and I got to be outside in all the gold, all day. We mowed our lawn of weeds for the first time this year, and edged and ran the weedeater. These chores stretched on from early morning to late afternoon. I kept complaining about edging (because edging is my job and I never think Rob understands its rigors). I was saying, “Running the edging machine is nothing; that’s easy. The hard part is crawling around for hours afterward, pulling up all the grass and weeds that have crept into the beds.” I kept talking about how sore my wrists were. I was being very melodramatic.

The best parts of the day were when we took little breaks. We made limeade and had lunch at our Quincy Burger King, where they were celebrating St. Patrick’s Day with emerald-green ketchup. In the afternoon, when we came in the house for a minute to have some peanuts, the cats gathered around to smell all the “interesting” smells on our clothes.

“Nothing makes you feel stinkier than ten cats gathered around smelling you,” Rob said.

The cats were crawling all over us, very intent on their smelling; they seemed to regard it as very important work–scientific research.

“All right, smellers,” I said, rolling my eyes. “That’s enough smelling.”

And I went outside and filled all our sad, empty porch pots with lush, fat ferns, petunias (pale pink and lavender), and fancy pink caladiums. Rob painted the front porch steps, and I weeded until it got dark.

The vegetable garden in soft focus