Azaleas

My azaleas are blooming! Aren’t they pretty?

(A whole lot of gardening nattering is coming up, I’m sorry-not-sorry, I love my garden and you should too.)

I bought a bunch of mint and herbs and some annuals last week and put them in pots and they look super-pretty on my back patio. My raspberry bush is here and in its container and the extra echinacea I ordered is also in a container out back. Our raised beds have decomposing wood chips and grass clippings in them in the hope that if we mix some peat moss and compost in that we’ll end up with decent soil for planting vegetables in next year. I have plans for a compost pile and have picked out a location for the trellis my mother-in-law brought down last fall, we just need to get the giant metal stakes out of the ground. We still need to clean out the bed under our bedroom window–that’s going to be either a more extensive herb garden or maybe a bunch of different kinds of lavender. The plants out front are doing so well–the lilac has put out tons of leaves, the roses and hydrangeas are settling in nicely, and the pollinator garden has a lot of growing happening. I was a bit worried about one of the coreopsis, as the other two had started putting out bits of green and this one hadn’t, but just as I decided I needed to call White Flower Farm and ask if they would replace it, it decided that it would, indeed, grow. Once everything gets a bit bigger, we’ll put down two bags of mulch and when the azaleas are done blooming, I’ll give them a trim (they’re looking a bit shaggy; I don’t want them super manicured, but I would like them to be a bit neater than they are).

I am finding that I am enjoying playing in the dirt a lot more than I thought I would. It’s very soothing. And I am making plans for the rest of the back yard, oh yes I am.

I discovered that my mean neighbor dumps her yard waste in the common area. I find this to be very interesting since I know that she knows that this is against the community rules–the president reminded her of them after she dumped a bunch of branches in the common area behind our house. We ended up paying to dispose the debris and didn’t ask her for any money because I didn’t really feel like dealing with her and because I thought it might be helpful for neighborly relations to just eat the hit to the budget. My poor budget. I’d been wondering what she was doing with her yard waste because she certainly hasn’t been putting it in the trash (we have the same trash day and I’ve noticed that she rarely has more than a small bag) and she doesn’t mulch her lawn clippings. I guess I have my answer! She dumps it in the wooded area at the far edge of the common area, a place that is either community or county owned.

But first, I need definitive proof and that means pictures which means an all-weather camera has just been added to my list of things to buy. Soon.

Not too many links this week for a variety of reasons, I hope to back up to full-strength linkage next week. Have a great weekend!

• I related a lot to this essay by Karen about her disordered eating.
• Why I’m Settling For a Man Who’s Not My High School Poster of Aragorn
• How Young Muslims Define “Halal Dating” For Themselves
• Is nothing sacred? How archaeological reviews imperil tribal lands
• In Praise of Ugly Food and The Case for Bad Coffee
• Why Is Jeff Goldblum Working at an Australian Sausage Truck? I have questions.
• They Don’t Want Us to Get Married I found this to be quite moving (it is explicitly Christian).
• Viet Thanh Nguyen Reveals How Writers’ Workshops Can Be Hostile
• Hi, so I basically got super-duper lucky but I’m going to chalk it up to my awesomeness instead of sheer chance. Don’t forget to buy my book!
• The Republican Lawmaker Who Secretly Created Reddit’s Women-Hating ‘Red Pill’ WELL THEN. Also: so. many. receipts.

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