Scaling Back Aspirations

It happens to all of us as we get older. We look at our goals, and recognize that we simply won’t achieve everything we were hoping to in life. For instance, I have just concluded that my garden this year is going to be somewhat symbolic.

The perennials will probably do okay: I think the raspberries will actually produce quite well, and perhaps the grape vines as well. I have hopes that some of the newly planted perennials will survive (artichoke and rhubarb). But I don’t think the peas I planted this spring are likely to make it, and there is an even largely grouping of things that got seeded, but I suspect won’t make it into the ground, or died before they made it into the ground.

I planted about a dozen sunflowers. I think that 2 are still growing (not very well). The purple pole beans were doing okay, until the plants just weren’t there. I think the squirrels got them.

Basil which I started from seed hasn’t died yet, and I think I will try to get some into the ground (or else Eva will be mightily displeased), but I don’t think it will do particularly well.

Fundamentally, I don’t have time to take care of a garden this summer. And I think I just have to accept that. Gardens require me to be around not only to plant, but to weed and water. And I’m just not around that regularly. So with great regret, I am more or less giving up on the garden. I’ll do a little playing around. I’ll try to keep the yard from becoming completely overgrown. But I am not going to try to produce much in the way of veggies, because I suspect I will fail in the attempt.

Raccoons in the Yard

I actually saw this a few weeks back, but haven’t gotten around to posting the picture yet. Two raccoons one after the other, walked on top of the fence alongside our yard, over our shed, across the fence at the back of our yard, and then straight back along our neighbor over the back fences fence to their garage. They then got up on the garage and began to groom and nap.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have my camera with me while they were walking on the fence, and I wasn’t willing to miss them doing that while I got the camera, so you’ll have to settle for them on top of the neighbor’s garage.

Just a touch of nature in the city.

Cleaning Up the Yard

Yesterday was a day full of cleaning the yard. I worked on some massively overgrown bushes and I got some trellises that fell down over the winter put back up. It was about 3.5 hours.

Before:

After:

The trellises before:

The trellises after:

It’s amazing how dramatic a difference a few hours of yard work make when they are the first hours of work that year.

In addition I put some seeds in some soil, and am awaiting the new sprouts. 72 little potlets. I planted peas in the pod, sow peas, purple pole beans, spinach, lettuce, basil and sunflowers. In 2 to 4 weeks I should be transplanting this stuff outside. Then comes the hard part: watering it all summer.