More from the weekend

Along with the various blooming flowers come the rapidly growing grass and the plentiful dandelions.  Nora despises both mowing the lawn and dandelions.  I told her she is an unfortunate result of her suburban upbringing; raised with the false notion that yards should be perfectly green, perfectly weed-free, perfectly manicured and above all, dandelion free!  I, on the other hand, would let the grass grow a little longer and I’m content to have my yard overrun with “weeds” of many colors – dandelions, forget-me-nots, white clover.  Unfortunately, if I let the grass grow too long, I would never get the lawnmower through it, so we spent a fair amount of time on Sunday mowing. 

But we were also able to knock a couple of other to-dos off the list.  Saturday was spent weeding flower beds and pruning roses.  A co-worker of mine kindly dropped off 5 hosta she no longer wanted, so I spent some time finding room for them. This called for some extensive day-lily removal in one area, which needed to happen anyway.  I dug, hacked, pulled and swore profusely for two hours but finally managed to rid 1/2 of the shade bed of the invasive day lily and planted 4 of the 5 hosta into this area.  The final one went into the Empress Wu hosta border (see post below).  

On Sunday, we planted another 25 strawberry plants (“Ozark Beauty” – a cold-hearty, everbearing variety); mostly in the new bed (bringing that bed up to 115 plants) interspersing the additional 10 into the current bed.  We also finished covering up the last remaining exposed areas (edging up near the fence) in the vegetable garden with cardboard and mulch to kill off the grass and weeds.  Once the grass has finally died off (a year or so), I hope to plant nasturtiums, sweet peas and morning glories along the fence in the garden every year.  I also did a little planting as I was cleaning up the beds – planted one variety of sunflowers and one of the bush bean varieties (Contender).  The vast majority of the planting and transplanting in the vegetable garden will happen this coming week and weekend.  

I also had a wonderful moment in the sheep pasture.  Magnolia and I went into the pasture to visit the sheep. She loves to say hi to them, sniff bums and eat sheep poo.  Once she said her hellos and bounded about trying to get them to play with her (to no avail), she wandered off to the far fence line to sniff out new smells. I stooped to pet Jem and Tallulah.  They both have developed a fondness for what I call "neck scrunchies." I rub under their chins and around their ears, and they stand there making small sounds of contentment. They were both wanting attention, so I sat on the grass and had a sheep standing on either side.  At one point, I must have stopped rubbing Jem and she picked up her leg and "pawed" me with her hoof to refocus my attention -- too cute.  Then, she laid down on the grass beside me, as I continued to pet Tallu.  It was so adorable.  I know it doesn't mean much to anyone who doesn't own sheep, but they aren't known for being overly affectionate or trusting.  The fact that she laid down with her back pressed up against me and was just contentedly hanging out was amazing to me.  She remained there until I had to get up and get back to work.