We’re building a deck!

We’re building a deck for the pool! I’m so excited! Like, I’m so excited, I think I’ll clean up the chair hammock and give it’s wooden bar a paint refresh. I’m gonna put both hammocks on the deck so when K2 falls asleep in the new one, I can chill in the hammock chair.

And I can have lots of plants ’cause I can water them with the hose now! First on the list is lemon grass! It keeps mosquitoes away. I can only find tiny little lemon grass plants. But when you see pictures, you see big bushy bunches of lemon grass. How do I get that? Do I have to seed it in Spring to get that? Is that a next year thing? I’ve got a big ass pot so I could have a huge bush of it. Maybe even drop a tiki torch in there! Yeah! I asked on nextdoor if anyone has any lemongrass to spare.

Lavender is supposed to be good for mosquitos too (good meaning, they don’t like it). My first priority is keeping mosquitos away from me.

They’re gonna start on the deck next week!

YAY!

New Garden Tools!

I got new garden tools! As a near-40-year-old, spiffy gardening tools bring me great joy. Tis the season to spring clean the flower beds! Especially since I’m having surgery next week. Shits gotta get done before then. I called out the lawn guy for an estimate on cleaning up the branches in the yard and cleaning the leaves and branches from the pool area. He tried to up-sell me on letting him take care of my flower beds. He said trimming and mulch could really spiff them up. Well, I usually take care of that myself. I just hadn’t got around to it yet. Plus I don’t like my azaleas over-trimmed. They’re supposed to look natural, not square. And don’t dare trim my spireas! They’re not yet full grown. So last weekend I got my ass out there and weeded and put down and ungodly amount of Preen (supposed to keep weeds out). And I ordered myself some new goodies.

First, a hedge trimmer. Last year I didn’t trim my hedges. It was a year of mourning. In the years before that, my mom would just bring up my sisters hedge trimmer for me to borrow that once a year you need one. Well, moms gone. So I bought my own hedge trimmer.

Click the picture for the link. Why this one? Well because all of my garden tools are 40 volt Black and Decker. This means all of my $100 batteries fit all of my equipment. Do I need three batteries to get through trimming my hedges? Nope. But I sure do need at least two batteries when I’m doing a lot of weed-eating. Keeping everything from the same line of products means a lot of cross versatility.

I was so excited to use my new hedge trimmer that I trimmed hedges on my lunch break Wednesday. Ah, the perks of working from home. I wish I had a before picture. It’s just so satisfying how nice and clean everything looks with just a bit of a trim. My Japonicas needed a hair cut badly. The azaleas got just a tad bit of a trim to even them out and keep them below the window line. I particularly like a hedge trimmer because it makes me feel so powerful. I shall cut ALL THE THINGS. But not my arm off — like a chainsaw. Chainsaws are terrifying. Hedge trimmers are satisfying without being terrifying.

What else did I order? A garden wagon.

Don’t make fun of my garden wagon! I need this thing. I hate my freaking wheel barrow — it always wants to tip over. And every year it needs new air in the tire. So I finally got a garden wagon. With solid rubber tires that won’t ever need air. And it’s huge — holds more than the wheel barrow. Holds 220lbs too! And it folds up! Fuck yeah it does! No disassembly required, just folds up. What?

God willin’ and the creek don’t rise, I’m gonna use it Sunday to pick up all those branches I trimmed and haul them off. Then I’ll use it to drag bags of mulch over to where I need them. Then Mr C can load it with 8 bags of fertilizer I bought and walk the property line and fertilize my arbor trees. Then this summer, I can use it to haul all those 40lb bags of salt and pool chemicals out to the pool. Or a load of chairs for a party.

What I’m saying is, I’m excited about this wagon.

Gardening and Weeds

I’ve been doing a lot of gardening and weed assassination the past two weeks. It started because I want to get the pool area ready for staining the fence next weekend. Well, that includes before and after pictures and the weeds back there were a bee and dragonfly haven. Good for the bugs, but man it looked bad. So last weekend I did roundup all over the rocks. This weekend I took a weed-eater to knock down all the weeds.

They did not go quietly into that good night. Not only did the round-up not kill them off, but they didn’t like my weed-eater. The battery died halfway through the area. So I had to wait for it to charge up again. Then when I got going a second time, it ran out of string/line. I finished the job but inhaled so much solid pollen that I couldn’t sleep for the stopped up nose that evening. Fucking weeds. Don’t surround your pool with rocks for easy upkeep. It is the EXACT opposite. It would be so much easier to just mow some grass.

I also weeded my front flower beds because in for a penny, in for a pound. I purchased my new pool hat early so I could garden in it. It’s for sun protection, after all. I had Mr C come down and take a picture of me all gardening and being housewify. I posted it to Facebook because it made me feel so mature. Not mature in a “I can do what I want” way but more of a “I have special outfits, gloves, and hats just to garden in now — I AM the old lady from Steel Magnolias now” kinda way.

My sister commented with a matching pictures of my sweet momma in the same get up gardening in her yard. (Thats me on the right in the hat).

Mom was usually the one to weed my flowerbeds. She couldn’t sit still and got antsy, so she pretty much weeded everything every day. I mean, realistically, thats how you stay on top of it. You have to constantly be on those bastards. Sadly, this year it’s just me. Miss you, momma. But I’m super proud of my flower bed. Look at those Candy Corn Spireas! I just adore them. (See, middle age. Men buy cars and electronics, women nest).

Also I treated the bats to some new life under the bat pole. I got them some additional day lilies (they already had yellow, now they have red too) and some purple summer plant the guy at the nursery recommended. Holy shit there’s a lot of bat guano under that pole. First night I counted 37 bats leaving. There has to be more than that in there now judging by the piles of guano. I need to scope it out one night this week and see how many we’re up to. I really hope I didn’t scare them too much today by gardening under their house. I didn’t hear them screeching at me and I tried to be fast.