Playing in the Dirt

   It sure is a gorgeous day today!  After we got home from our meeting we had a quick lunch, then Eler Beth and I started getting our front yard in order.  I'm taking a break from weeding and cleaning out old leaves and trash, and arranging or rearranging borders.  I doubt we'll actually plant anything today, but we're definitely getting all of our beds ready for planting.                                                       

Thomas works for a quarry so he often brings home really nice limestone rocks, usually absolutely full of fossils and sometimes containing quartzite or crystals.  I use these to border or decorate my plant beds.  Eler Beth has quite a collection of fossils and minerals that she's collected over the years, including four trilobites (two of which she found at the quarry).

  We found lots of earthworms and big, fat, white grubs.  Eler Beth was going to put them in a container to use when she next goes fishing, but we convinced her that a) she probably won't go fishing before next weekend and b) it'll be better for our plants if we leave the earthworms where they are.

I can't wait to actually get my hands in some soil and get some seeds or plants in. 

My flowering almond is blooming very prettily right now.  My mother gave me a cutting off hers when we bought this house five years ago, and it took off very well.  It's a very pretty bush now.  My lilac is looking much better, too.  My sister, Lois, gave me a piece off the lilac in her yard that had originally been part of the lilac bush in my paternal grandmother's yard, so it's special to me.  She also gave it to me when we bought our house.  I planted it and it took off very well; the second year it grew even more, and I was so pleased that it was doing so well.  That fall I had moved the marker that kept me or Thomas from accidentally cutting it down, preparatory to putting a pretty border around it one weekend, when the nice old gentleman who mows our neighbor's yard for her decided he would be nice and mow our front yard which was beginning to get a lot of fall leaves on it.  He mowed with his mulching mower so that our leaves were taken care of, and he was so pleased with himself -- but he mowed down my lilac!!  Thankfully it came right back up in the Spring of the third year; last year it grew a couple more inches, and this year it's looking really good!  Maybe someday (probably about the time we're ready to sell this house and move) it will actually have some blooms.

Well, I'm going to go do a little bit more yard work, but I'll be back later.  Don't know what I'll write about, but I'll be back!