A Long Messy Blog Entry

Saturday morning Gary showed up early with his cat. Callum was already in the shed putting up boxes for switches and plugs. In less than an hour Gary had re-backfilled the house and smoothed out the muddy ruts everywhere in preparation for landscaping. He didn’t notice the washing line until he ran into it with his cat. However, it was still standing. I followed him back to his place to get two humungous truck loads of garden soil.

I piled all the soil into rows and wheelbarrowed it up the slope to the greenhouse. Despite the slope the greenhouse is in an excellent position it gets sun all day.

I planted everything except the tender annuals. What I really wanted are Raspberries. But I don’t feel like spending a couple hundred dollars for the ones at the garden center, costing $9.99 each.

When I got back home this afternoon I saw my washing line had collapsed. All the clothes were lying in the mud. Damn. The line had frayed from where Gary ran into it. I had another load of wash waiting to be hung up so I bunged the now dirty load back into the washer and set off to the hardware store, in the Hart shopping center, For a clamp to fix the line.

On the way there I noticed a sign advertising Perennials and houseplants for sale. I stopped of course. It was a nice old couple selling extras from their garden, Primulas, Lilacs and roses. I got two roses for $2 a piece and to think I paid $14.99 each at the garden center. I asked them about raspberry canes. The old lady said she sold the berries in August The old man said I was welcome to some canes but he thought it best I came back in the fall. He said there would be no charge. What a good deal. I told them I would definitely come back for the canes and for some berries.

Back at home with the clamp I fixed the washing line and hung out the other load. Before I had even hung it all up the damn thing crashed again dragging everything in the mud. I was beginning to think I needed to buy a whole new line. But it turned out the reason it had collapsed again was because I had failed to tighten the clamp enough.

I just got back from loading rocks into my pickup. Gary's son Sean told me where to get them. I’m going to use them to make a rock wall around my rose bed which is now being filled with perennials I couldn’t bare to leave behind at my old house. All of them, except for a couple of the Primulas, where given to me from friends.