workin' for the weekend*

Sometimes I just go completely off the deep end about something and must act on my impulses immediately. I think most southern folks call it a 'wild hair'. I can't call it that. My brain does crazy things with that imagery.

My front yard drives me completely insane. Usually it's a mild form of insanity, a sort of 'oh bother, stupid yard' and then I let it go. Not Friday. A bit of backstory: when we bought this house in December of 2006, we were concerned about erosion, since the house sits on a built up hill of red clay, which can often get really dry and simply wash away if you're not paying attention. So we amended our contract to include a shored up bed in front of the living room windows and a retaining wall. They did it without too much of a struggle. But they filled it full of red clay and rocks. Big ones. Bigger than my head. Sigh.

(if you've never seen red clay, this is it. it's red. it's clay. and not to say that my head is tiny. the rocks you see here are the little ones. the big ones got thrown into the woods, where all good rocks go to die. or get bigger, whatever they do.)

Well the escapade on Friday all began when I took out the dog after work. I took note that my two forlorn tulips (in another flower bed) that never bloomed were dying. Great. Two of the ten that I planted got leaves, then died. Not a bloom in site. This pissed me off, so I went to prune the first dying one and um...out came the bulb. Oops. So I dug around a bit and realized there were three bulbs in the ground and that my lonely little tulip had multiplied. I went over and somewhat gently pulled up the other lonely tulip and it had multiplied too! Whee!

I dug them all up and repotted them so they could grow and mingle and be friends. You can only see the tops of four of them, but there are about 6 more that were just bulbs.

I dug around the rest of the bed and the other tulip bulbs had all disintegrated. Boo. I still got ten for ten, but not in a way I had intended. Still, now I have a right mess in that particular bed. I'll deal with it next weekend.

Then I decided that I was tired of that icky flower bed under the living room windows. So I put on icky gardening clothes (not very different from my icky workout clothes from the day before) and made Nate go to Lowe's with me to get real dirt, fertilizer, a hoe, and some bushes. (Cause a girl needs her ho and bushes. Ahem.)

So I grabbed my ipod and dug and sang at the top of my lungs until it got dark. I'm quite sure this confirmed my neighbor's thoughts about my wackiness. But I'm a wimp and I didn't get very far. Wet clay is very heavy.

Saturday morning we got up and did the rest. We had to dig out two feet by two feet of red freaking clay, mix it up with dirt and fertilizer then put it back in. The rest of the clay will get mixed with more dirt and fertilizer to fill up the bed the tulips came out of. I might replant them or just get something else.

We now have three tiny knockout rose bushes, all of which have brand new blooms today. I hear they grow fast and furious, so I hope they'll just cover that whole area quickly. I hate all the ugly black waterproofing stuff and the shoddy concrete work. Just eww.

Later this week I'll go buy some edging stones to give it a border and make it really pretty.


The only downfall is that after this mania my back is completely out of whack. It was already hurting on Friday and my mild scoliosis was twinging something awful. It's a weak spot, but not in any detrimental way.

On Sunday I enjoyed Lucy Neatby's class at my LYS with my mother-in-law and her sister. We learned a few new toe and heel tricks and giggled a lot. I might also have said 'shit' a few too many times in polite company. But Lucy was wonderful and fascinating. She totally makes me want pink and purple hair.

*i know that song is not about working ON the weekend, but now it's stuck in my head. enjoy.