Sprung is here

[troyce]

I'm not usually much on Spring. For me it's not the sudden breath of life after a hard cold winter (this is Texas, you know). For me it's always the first sign that another goddamn hot summer is on the way. Another 9 months to eek out an existence before the short time of the year I can go outside and not be in physical pain. Not to mention the mosquitoes. Here they get so big you can saddle and ride them. I'm suspecting they have also figured out how to use door knobs so they can come inside anytime they want.

All that misery aside, I've been off since Thursday for our short Spring Break (Texas A&M to staff: screw you) and yesterday decided to tackle some backyard gardening. Years ago I put in a small round flowerbed in the center of the yard, with a stone border and sundial in the center. The last few years it's been horribly overgrown, with the ground swallowing up the stone border. So I did some major work yesterday on it. I took a trowel and dug down to find all the stones (and in the process uncovering 2 Mimbres pots and a burial). There were some serious tree roots that had encroached that had to be dug out, and I mixed in two large bags of potting soil to rejuvenate the bed. Another trip to Lowe's to pick up some flowers, and now it's ready for a new season. I only have 4 plants in now, to mark the compass points. I'll add some others in later once they've grown up a bit. The stone border is washed off and all white now, and I'm quite happy with how it turned out, even though I'm paying the price today. Lower back pains. I got a little too carried away shoveling and turning soil I think. I also added a couple of hanging baskets of flowers for the pergola, but need to get more. New hummingbird feeder is all set to go when they show up.

Here's a pic of the circular flower bed:

Comments

[dana3.livejournal.com]

Beautiful!! Here it's the crocuses just now showing their colors (see icon). The hellebores are in bloom (Xmas and Lenten varieties), and the daffodils are sending up their first shoots. Here it IS the reprieve after a long deep snow winter. BUT -- having just walked through a whole cloud of no-see-'ems in the attempt to say hello to my mailman, I really hear you about the TX mosquitoes ... :D

[morfin.livejournal.com]

oh, nice flowers. What are "no-see-'ems?" A northern mosquito variant?

[wild-heart.livejournal.com]

2 Mimbres pots and a burial

What???

[morfin.livejournal.com]

Mimbres were a 12-13th century Indian tribe in New Mexico. They are known for their beautiful black and white pottery, which are highly collectible. When they buried people, theyd place a pot over their face. My wife spent a summer working on a Mimbres site in New Mexico and discovered a burial.

[stina-leicht.livejournal.com]

shhh, you're so not supposed to tell people where the bodies are buried. now i'll have to come over to help you move them. sheesh!

er... the flowerbed is pretty. :)

[morfin.livejournal.com]

you think I'm stupid enough to plant the bodies in my OWN backyard? These are someone else's obviously. I always put the bodies I want to dispose of in neatly packaged boxes, mark "Please Rush" and mail them so the post office will loose them for me ;)