baraka

Today was exquisite. We were blessed with almost 80 degree temperatures, with gentle breezes. We were also blessed with no time commitments today. We had a lot of fun work/playing outside.

The south side lawn, our soon to be beautiful crazy garden, is in the process of transformation. Gone are giant rotten trunks of wood and piles of weeds. Rough paths are marked out in bark, and beds have begun being marked. It is exciting to see. We're thinking of flattening out our surplus of boxes and putting them down to mark paths, and putting bark on top of those. After that, it will be putting plants in the ground until it all grows into a verdant jungle.

I pruned all of our fruit trees today. I learned how to prune today, I hope. I pruned the grapevines, and removed a lot of dead or old wood from the raspberry patch. The raspberry patch has been around for 8 years now, and parts of it are starting to peter out. Hopefully a thorough going-through will rejuvenate it. Don selectively cut out some weedy mulberry trees; there are so many, they can't all possibly grow here. He also cut off one big almost-dead limb on the redbud tree. The tree is slowly dying, half of it being flung away during the tornado almost three years ago. The light will stimulate whatever next will grow there--a big chestnut tree, I hope.

Bulbs are greening out of the ground, as is the garlic. Strawberries are greening up, as is the dame's rocket, and white clover leaves have begun springing out of the ground. The fruit trees all have buds, and I even saw a tiny leaf on a cherry branch as I pruned it away. There were lots of bugs running around, as we wreaked havoc in their living space today. The mosquitoes are out.

Kaleigh played in mud, baked in the mud, through mud balls and made them into mud pancakes, and rode her bike over to turtle alley, around the yard, and down the street. She's on a reading binge currently. Even with all the beauty and warmth outside, she still read one and a half Boxcar Children books. Kaleigh helped out with whatever was going on also. We had a good, fun, getting-stuff-done day.

My back is tired, and I'm ready to dive back into Ursula LeGuin's lovely story, the Dispossessed. It's exactly what I need to read right now.

carey