Plum Crazy

My lack of recent posts has not been an accurate reflection of my gardening activity.  I've been working on removing large sections of lawn around the perimeter of my back yard to create beds and reduce the amount of mowing in my future.  Anyone that has removed sod by hand knows what a back breaking job this can be.  

I removed grass that previously went all the way to the fence.  I have placed a few plants already,
but I am still waiting for inspiration on how I want this bed to look ultimatetly.

Rather than getting rid of all the dug-up sod I'm saving it for unknown reasons.

As the work is hard, it is about to come to a screeching halt because of this:

Even if I wake up at the crack of dawn and get cracking, it won't take long before it's too hot for that kind of work.

In the meantime, I think we'll fill up the kiddie pool and pull out the slip-n-slide-and-go-the-ER and have some fun in the water.  And while we're out there, maybe we'll grab a few plums and do our best to enjoy the bounty of summer.  

Dead Tree Village

My daughter watches a PBS cartoon called “Dinosaur Train”.  The train travels through the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous periods and makes stops at all kinds of places like Triceratops Terrace and Velociraptor Valley.  As the train arrives at these alliterative locales the conductor, a talking Troodon (of course), calls out the name of the place. 

So when I pulled my daughter around the backyard the other night I wasn’t surprised when she started calling out names of the places we had just passed.  “Sunflower Valley” she yelled.  “Next stop, Red Shed Station.” We lumbered around “Tomato Town” and made our way back toward the house.  When she called out “Next stop, Dead Tree Village” it occurred to me that kids frequently see things the way they really are.

I guess this tree is looking worse for wear.  Hopefully in the next week or so we will be able to rename this section “Sawdust Sanctuary.”  And then down the road maybe it will be rechristened something a little more alive.