There’s so much dirt under my fingernails right now that, if you didn’t know better, you’d think I moonlighted as an earthworm or something.  I decided to do a little light yardwork after dinner (being as how my husband isn’t here and all) and one project turned into fifty and before I knew it I was re-planting tulips and re-locating a massive clematis that just happened to be growing right on top of a rose.

I’d show you pictures but that would require me to get up and abandon this lovely ice cream I’m currently spending time with.  That’s not going to happen.  What is going to happen is that we shall see whether my mad re-planting skills work on the clematis I moved.  I feel like I just transplanted an organ and shall be waiting on the tips of my toes to see if this sucker’s gonna make it or croak.

I hope it makes it, but if not I won’t cry or anything.  It was choking out my rose bush, so it was either the clematis or the rose.  Between the two, I think moving the clematis was the only real option there.

It just occurred to me that I’m hopelessly boring sitting here talking about plants and yardwork.  Unfortunately, this is about as exciting as I’m gonna get tonight so I’d better go before I cause y’all to start dozing at your desks.  I can just imagine it now, your co-worker or spouse or roommate stumbles across your inert form lying prone across your keyboard and he/she takes off running down the street, flagging a policeman (who looks like a British constable) and pleading, “Stop her before she bores again!”

Let’s avoid a scene then, shall we?  I just finished the first season of Prison Break and I have no desire to get shipped off the clink.  I have no time to get a full-body tattoo and would probably just read it backward anyway even if I did.

I’d be thanking my lucky stars that it’s Friday right now, if only I could see them. Alas, my neighborhood has been swathed for two days in the dankest, coldest, most bone-chilling fog you have ever seen and I may never see the stars again. I’d take a picture for you but please see above re: freezing cold fog.

I was outside doing some yard work today and I literally felt like Dementors were going to come gliding around the corner any minute to suck away my sanity and happiness. I decided to beat a hasty retreat indoors to implore my husband to prepare booze for me so that I could hide from the Dementors and think of the happiest memory I have ever had.

Now that we all know how I’ll be spending my weekend, let’s talk about you. How are you planning to spend your weekend?

For those of you who have not toured Casa de Mitchell, picture, if you will, a lush green expanse where the plants are tall and the to-do lists are even taller. A land where flowers can grow seven feet tall, where frogs can fit through holes the size of a quarter and end up on your shovel even though, really, they have no business being there, and where bunnies visit nightly to torment the resident Labrador.

The direct result of all this unruly life, however, is even more unruly life. We have wildlife all over the place and it’s getting a bit out of hand. My personal favorites are the two squirrels who enjoy re-enacting American Gladiators on our rose trellis. They balance their hind legs on the slats of the trellis and wrestle with their front paws until one of them topples. When one of them falls, he/she gets back up and they go at it again. It’s awesome but so distracting. When they’re not doing this, our resident squirrels also enjoy racing up and down our cedar trees and making irritable noises at the puppy.

Another wild friend is Buns, the brown bunny who hops through our yard every morning and evening. He’s large, soft-looking, and nobody’s fool. He enjoys rustling the leaves of our shrubs when I’m walking out in the dark yard at night and running past the puppy when Doc is on a leash, thus causing Doc substantial psychic pain because he realizes that the brief pleasure to be had from running at Buns is incalculably dwarfed by the severity of my displeasure at having my puppy yank my arm off while chasing a bunny.

We have a negligent mommy duck who hasn’t stopped by since her chicks were downy (which is just as well, because I have a lecture that’s just burning my lips off waiting for her) and also a raccoon who is fat, belligerent, and not above stealing Doc’s kibble if we leave the garage door open all night.

In addition to these warm-blooded creatures, there’s a staggering array of butterflies, moths, spiders, worms, beetles, frogs, snakes, and grubs who also enjoy the spacious grounds surrounding our house. I have been accosted personally by bright green frogs twice, have experienced the tickly perambulations of spiders on my bare arms five times, and have scooped up more slugs with the poop scoop than I care to remember.

I’m sure these creatures all lived here quite happily before we bought this place, but my more narcissistic side is inclined to believe they’re all new additions, drawn here by their fame-hungry natures, all eager for a mention in my blog.

I complain about yard work quite often on this blog, calling our garden a jungle and kvetching about how much work it is. What I don’t do is show you how awesome our yard looks as a result. We have almost 1/3 of an acre and the people who came before us landscaped virtually every square inch. We inherited a really cool garden and have worked hard to keep it up (during the summer we can guarantee at least four hours of every weekend to yard work.) The end result is, I hope you’ll agree, well worth it:

These are my beautiful pansies. I planted them for some color (as this flower box is visible from the kitchen) when we were trying to sell our house, but I’ve gotten very fond of seeing them outside in the morning. When it’s cloudy and gray outside they seem to brighten the very air around them.

In the Spring, there are about six daffodils that shoot up out of that middle spot there, but those have already gone back to sleep until next year.

These are just some of the roses we grow here. We have about eight different varieties, and these grow on a trellis that tops the fence by our deck. These roses are so neat, because every year they grow farther along the trellis. I’m hoping that someday they’ll cover the whole trellis and we’ll have a canopy of roses. Also, they smell amazing!

This is the walkway that we cleared out last weekend. The stones of the walkway are all very sparkly and this part of our yard has a very serene quality to it.

It’s right next to our deck and contains some of the biggest plants in our yard. In the far right corner, you can see the outline of our giant fleece flower. This beast grows over eight feet tall in about a month and is about four feet wide. It’s enormous!

Don’t you just wish you got to look out and see this every morning?

This is only a few highlights from our yard. We have a lot of flowers and plants that flourish at different times of the year, so our yard never looks the same from month to month.

Wes and I have given up on the idea of getting all the yard work done at once and have instead embraced a do-what-you-can perspective on the whole issue. Unless we hire a full-time gardener, there’s no way it’s all getting done! Still, even though it’s a ton of work and the dirt never really comes out from the farthest reaches of my fingernails, we enjoy taking care of our yard and love watching it flourish. Hard work is always better when it pays off in a pretty way.