Saturday, September 20, 2008

Gardening, Mom's, and other family

Good evening once again!
Today was a good for me type day.

I took my responsibilities of chores to my old self limits.
Although, I did wake slightly later than my usual 6-6:30 A.M., it was nearly 8 when I finally poured my cup of coffee and went to the computer to turn it back on. My usual routine was changed since after I watched a few minutes of news I found out that a sporting event was beginning so I decided to get dressed and have a second cup out on the patio, after I fed the wild birds and our pond fish.
Soon, Skipper our Bichon came to the back door while I was sitting watching the birds and asked to come out, and I let him.

My hubby was still asleep.
And so I decided that I would start the root and grass removal left in the now contained edging for the VEGGIE garden.

I went back out to the shed and got out our rolling cart that is also a seat for gardening, in fact it is called the garden buddy with even a holder for my cane, it more than likely is for some long tool but my cane fits perfectly!
Tools fit in it, and there are other compartments for other things that I still have not figured out what to add to it.
Right now it only contains a hand held spade and rake.
I diligently went down the whole fifteen square feet of contained earth and pulled anything green or hairy-rooted repeating the process three times back and fourth with much care and as little messiness as possible.
Even this sub dirt was looking very healthy and black, and turned my hands and nails that color, a sensation I had not had in quite some time and oddly enough I did miss.
When I felt I had cleaned or cleared the bottom earth, since the super mix would be going on top of this floor of soil, and knowing from experience that the more I removed now that later on weeding would not be as massive a job, hopefully.
Nearly six inches of new material would be going over my pre-weeding work.

Before I realized it my husband was calling me in for breakfast, we take turns since he has been retired.
The time had gone so fast it was nearly 9:30 A.M. by then.
After our fried eggs and toast breakfast my husband was anxious to get back to our garden, and thanked me for getting the garden bed ready for our super mix of soils.
He shoveled it from the wheel barrel into the edging in three separate trips the amount was just right and that was good because it was all gone anyway!

By now it was nearly ten and I reminded him that he said he was going to call his Mom, and so he did and it was good thing too.
That poor nearly 88 year old woman had been trying for weeks to reach us and she thought that we had been killed by the hurricanes!
She kept dialing our number but could not get through, even asked her neighbor to help!
Unfortunately, dear sweet Mom did not remember us telling her that she shouldn’t call our house phone because it was a dedicated computer line, and was always being used that way except when we turned it off at bedtime.
Of course many times we had given her our two cell phone numbers, but she couldn’t find them or even remember that we had, we have been using them for nearly ten years now.
She was crying with joy to know that we were all right!

Mom lives in Pennsylvania just 5 miles from her daughter, my husband’s kid sister, five years his junior, but sometimes they have silly disagreements, and don’t talk for months, as of today she said it had been two months, and I can only assume that is one of the reasons she had no other options in her mind on how to reach us.
Oh well, I keep reminding my husband how she is getting on in age, and that memory lapses are more frequent so we should check on her more often.
His older brother, five years his senior, lives in Washington State, we are all very far from everyone.

After that call he finished the garden even planting and seeding while I played hooky in the pool, and swum.
I got out for a rest period and decided to call our eldest son to let him know what had happened and that we gave his grandma both his house and cell numbers again, and that he too should call her.

Next I decided to call my cousins, the retired teachers that moved here from NJ, who were on their way out and we agreed that they would call back tomorrow.

I made lunch and dinner; we take turns with those too.
Then we watched some PBS garden and how to shows that we both enjoy, to cool down out of the heat and sun.
Compromise is more than just ideas.

Good night to all, and to all see how your family is doing.

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