Lock-down Day 374

I couldn't publish my post last night, as Mewhtos had claimed my chair - again.

When I opened up for mippies this morning, I saw that Smeagol had again spent the night sleeping just outside my garden. That's the second time I 'caught' him there. I don't know why he doesn't sleep in the dog hut, which is nice and warm, and won't cover him in dew in the mornings. I'm thinking of putting a box with a blankie on the freezer, where he eats. There has been tension between him and mippies, but I'm doing my best to avoid actual fights.

It's overcast this morning, but the forecast shows the sun will blaze this afternoon. Might be a good time to mow the lawn?

It's ten and half the lawn is mowed. The easy half, because I mowed that last weekend as well. Now for the other half, which I haven't mowed in 2 weeks.

Another hour later and all is done! And I'm ravenous! With feeling so miserable all weekend, I haven't baked any bread rolls, nor cooked anything. Nor have I really eaten ... so I've put the potatoes in the steamer now.

I've saturated the hard, dry corner of the back lawn, aka watered till it puddled. I'm now doing the same between the ponytail and the tree, near the front gate.

I'm now re-watching the charming series 'Rosemary & Thyme', about two women, who get projects as gardeners and solve murders in between. Although not a very riveting series, it is really charming, plus, it always inspires me to garden. Always! And seeing some of the gardens they create, gave me an idea: Why not plant the spekboom to grow into a hedge? Yes, it would mean pruning and shaping - something I'm not very fond of doing, having been pruned and shaped myself most of my life ... but it would solve my 'Where the heck do I have space' problem. And I thought an 'S' shape around both those trees would be lovely! It wouldn't obscure any view, nor would it interfere with the roses, nor be too close to the wall ... all the issues that all my other plans and ideas had. Plus, it will reduce some of the 'lawn' and that area is pure weeds, hardly any grass at all!

Before I can start, though, I have to rescue Mewthos! Silly twit got outside and is now looking for a way back ... only, he's looking to get into the neighbour's garden! Where the dogs would tear him apart! So, I have to walk inside, along the fence, with Mewthos following me outside, leading him to the carport, where he can come underneath, back inside.

Then I continued clearing along the rock garden to the porch. At least it no longer looks like I did only half a job - but I had to give that up, when the sun came out and started to burn my back! Mewthos had joined me, and kept tapping my foot to tell me I should be tickling his tummy, not digging in the dirt! He went so far as to roll in the dirt, right where I was trying to work, to make his point!

Yeah, I'm feeling better. Sadly, feeling isn't reality. Things are still bad. I'll not think about it today, though. Or rather, I'll work on keeping it out of my mind.

Well, the garden is enough of a headache! As I'm working on the space, where I now want to plant the spekboom, I'm asking myself: why am I making new beds, when so much of what I had already cleared has grown over again! Why not first maintain what I've already achieved? And then I look at the poor Spekboom, and how badly they deserve to get out of the pots and into the garden ... back and forth, round and round, there's just no end ...

At this point, it's just too much to keep up with - even in a month of Sundays! Fortunately, it won't always be like that ... every time I weed, I get more and more roots out. The more roots I keep removing, the less weeds will re-grow. One day, I'll be walking around looking for something to do ... and I'll have a hard time finding work! It happened in the garden in PE, so ... there's hope!

The ponytails are a good example! It took me two weeks to clean all the yellow fronds off them - that was 6 months ago, and I still won't have to do that again anytime soon! Though I should weed the beds again.

Well, I decided to clear the pavement outside my bedroom. Again. Clearing what I had already cleaned earlier, was not such a big problem - but when I get to the other side, there are piles of ground, carried there by the ants, who love building nests between bricks, under grass! They were not happy with me, exposing their nest! They let me know by biting me! On the boob! No, I don't know how they get up there, but they manage! And it's painful! As MY revenge, I swept their nests off the pavement!

This was after I had finished re-doing 2/3rds, with the last 3rd I had not yet touched.

It's never been this clean before! Never!
When I first looked at the place, I didn't even see that there was any pavement!

Then I pulled out the weeds along the house, again.

All pulled out, now ...

When I took a look at my seeds on the veranda, I see that Sage is making its first appearance! I'm glad, as I was beginning to wonder ...

I've been thinking why Smeagol is still so skinny and I think he may be much older than I thought. As they age, cats tend to get skinny, looking underfed. I remember Mynx did, and Frankie was also quite skinny.

I brought mippies in quite early. With Smeagol around, they were all huddling around the veranda anyway, so ... I figured I might as well take advantage.