I'm really going all out on the vegetable garden right now. Went out and bought the plants: far too much lettuce (8-packs of a single type, so bought 2), four-six swiss chard (rainbow type again), a rosemary plant, parsley, chives, a pack of marigolds, strawberries and two tomato plants. They didn't have beans in yet, so that will come later. Oh yes, a bunch of beets as well.

Here's the funny thing. In prepping the first bed for the new plants, I found little tiny carrots: less than an inch long. They were the ones I planted last May, and they'd barely grown at all.

Also, I've gotten the second bed nearly bricked to the second level. Now I'm wondering if it's worth going for three, or if two is good enough.

I've started tidying up the two patches I'm using for vegetables again this year. Well, actually, one and a half patches. One got fully finished last year (and was a moderate success). The other got cleared and I got some of the bricks I'm using for edging placed.

Now the weather has improved enough I can finally get out there and check things out for this year. Much to my surprise, the one square of chives I planted last year survived. Nothing else, so all the other dead plants got ripped out. I've still got to clear the pine needles and cones, but that can wait until I have an empty garbage can to put them in. The second patch is not done yet, but if I have to I can use it the way it is now. I got the rest of the first rank of bricks put in around it. I'd like to take the bricks two higher, making it a raised bed.

I'm following the methods used in Square Foot Gardening again this year as last year was the first year I had success with a vegetable garden after intermittent years of trying.

I'm plotting to plant beans (got a double handful of beans from four plants last year), swiss chard (two to four plants), lettuce (perhaps not twelve plants though this year), more chives as they help to keep the pests down, marigolds (for the same reason), tomatoes (although I didn't get anything from them last year, I want to try again), parsley (more of it this year than last). I'm thinking of giving radishes and carrots another try. Last year the seeds didn't even sprout - I think the birds got them all. Cucumbers (the one plant) took over but didn't give me any results, just vined all over three squares.

Wall, we'll see how things work out this year.

Well, the weather is finally nice enough to get out in the garden. Warm, dry and best of all, no animals larger than a cat!

Got a couple of the lawns raked and got the bush by the stairs pulled back, giving back the other half of the stairs. Pruning, which was the other option would have taken off at least a third of it. Took out a couple of other twiggy messes (some sort of tree which had been taken off at ground level, but which was still sprouting).

That cat's been back every day since I last posted. He's really making himself at home here.

Other than that, I recreated a garden bed that last existed twenty-five years ago. This is rocky (try more like boulders) soil filled with roots, weeds and moss and it last saw a shovel the said quarter century ago. I ended up removing a stump as well. However, it is now filled with lillies and irises as well as other perenial plants.

I'm stiff and sore, but already planning what I hope to do to other areas of the garden.

Also, I've been working on a LOTR fanfic, to go with Wizards. No wonder there's been no updates to the website.

Given the wonderful weather here, I've gone back to gardening. About two hours yesterday picking up fallen dead branches left two large piles for bundling today. Today, I added another small piles worth cutting some of the dead branches out of three small trees. On top of that, I filled three garbage cans with sawdust, twigs and leaves. The depressing part of this is that if I didn't know exactly where I had been working, I couldn't see any difference from the way it was before.

Last night I went to the closing performace of Columbo: Prescription Murder at the local theatre. It was really good (and I'm not usually a murder mystery fan).

That about sums things up. The weather's been great so forget about fixing the computer (it's now been over a month).

Instead, I've been working in the yard. Note: this is a yard that has been mostly abandoned but for some pruning and weeding (sort of) for the last fifteen to twenty years.

Day before yesterday I was dealing with a wild Winter Blooming Jasmine (it's actual name. I called it (and still do) the winter blooming mess). The thing is so tangled that no matter how I prune it, it's mostly the bare vines and twigs (they average 4-8 ft or longer, most of which is brown wood before the greenery and new shoots). Then, I decided to tackle the dead maple clump. It's been dead for about fifteen years. Two of the trunks had rotted through and colapsed. The rest I gave up on. It's going to have to wait for a power saw (which I don't own). That started a crusade against dead wood in the rest of the yard. Here's where the complaint about the length of time it's been comes into play.

Yesterday I spent about five hours cutting out dead branches and raking up old debris, and looking at it today, you wouldn't notice a difference (at least I don't).

Today I couldn't face the dead wood situation, so I started to re-seed one of the lawns. The lawn in question is about 80% moss, 5% weeds and 15% grass, so I'm raking everything but the grass and re-seeding things by hand. Only got about 8ft square done. I don't even know if this will work. This is on top of trying to paint the house.