I spent yesterday alternating lazing about with doing some yard work. It was one of those days when the mood flows in and out of euphoria, a beautiful sunny spring day, 80 degree weather, jays and cardinals in the sprinkler at the east garden bird bath, wrens and doves at the bird bath in the courtyard. For awhile there was a lot of bird calling and squirrels chattering when the young hawks came on the scene, but they didn’t stay long. I raked the dried oak leaves into mulch for the plants in the yard. I’m a firm believer in mulch. My jungle yard is proof it works. I pulled a few wheelbarrows full of wedelia and ferns out of the garden area to the left of the front walkway under the giant oak, and raked another few wheelbarrowsful of dried oak leaves out of there, using it as mulch for the giant philodendron and turk’s cap and bottlebrush in the front berm. My cats Izzy and YinYang lazed about under the bamboo.
I pruned back the spent palmetto fronds on the east path into the backyard. I cut back more of the eleagnus around my back porch and located the yellow jacket hive I’d disturbed last sunset and gotten 3 good stings for it. I dispatched the hive and was careful in cutting the eleagnus not to disturb any cardinal nests that might be hidden inside. I left the eleagnus cuttings on the ground to be dealt with another day. I’ll probably just run over them with my mulching mower and rake them underneath the shrub. I’ve never had luck transplanting eleagnus.
I watered the plants and trees along the property line, the crepe myrtle, the arbovitae, the oaks, the turk’s cap, the arbicola, the mulberry, the loquats. I set the sprinkler out front to water in the grass near the road and the privacy line of loquats. I moved one of the tables on the front driveway to a spot closet to the road, so I could add a chair at sunset. I rearranged plants atop the table as a privacy hedge so I could have full view of the street yet not be facing and staring into my front neighbor’s property. It was dusk as I moved the sprinkler and I heard a passing neighbor kid say as they rode by on bikes, “Look, she’s out in the yard.” Sheesh, I’ve become the neighborhood weird old chick that kids ride by to catch a glimpse of…
I’d doused myself in Skin So Soft so the misquitoes were not troublesome. They were out and so were the bats, buzzing about, sonaring so close you could hear their wings flap and think you’re being dive bombed. You’re not being targeted, they know where you are, it’s dinnertime and they’re just eating misquitoes.
It was a perfect golden day and a perfect waxing moon evening. I feel so blessed that I’m the one who gets to life my life. Life is good and it keeps getting better. Do I believe it because I experience it, or do I experience it because I believe it?