I guess today I just plain feel out of my depth.
My house is a mountainous task all of the sudden, since it's time to get bids from people to replace the porch. I know nothing whatsoever about this, and feel a distinct desire to crawl under said dilapidated porch and hide. But no, this has to be done, and I'm the only person who is going to do it. Yep.
It's just like when I bought my car. I know nothing about cars. How did I handle that?
Oh, yeah. I read everything I could find on the Internet about cars, decided what I wanted, and then finally was very cold and demanding until some salesman gave it to me. I was terrified the whole time, but tried to act like I knew what the hell I was talking about.
Suppose I can do that with a porch?
I'm also looking at a major cleanup job on my property. I need to take down an old TV antennae which has been threatening to fall all winter, and in order to do so I will have to dangle precariously from my roof and use power tools at the same time. I have a tall house, so I'm not really looking forward to this. I will need Wonder Twin Powers! And a really powerful saw.
Also in the cleanup job will be the destruction of an old rusty swing set, also requiring power tools, and the demolition of the shed, which I think I can do with a sledge hammer, or a stiff breeze.
Then it will be time to rip up the fence which doesn't really enclose anything, cut down the tree that's growing too close to the house, and remove the dead tree from the back yard. After removing that nasty old fence, I ought to put in a hedgerow of evergreen bushes over there, or some trees, or something. I really should put some evergreens on the other side of the yard, too, for privacy.
Of course, I don't know how to do any of these things, either.
But that's okay. I am an intellectual person in the computer age. I ought to be able to find out. I'll just go on a month-long quest of information-gathering, and make the best of it I can. It can't be that scary, right?
I'm hoping to hear about Taming of the Shrew today, but I'm not really holding my breath. I think they're having trouble filling the cast, and that's something I can understand, after last summer. It's better that they try to get everyone now than wait until 2 weeks before show.
Today it is nasty, snowy and wet outside, so I rebelled by ordering the plants I'm going to put in my yard this spring! I'm thinking lovely, sunny thoughts of brightly-colored blooms going crazy all over my yard. Mostly, though, I'm thinking of the dead zones near my house, where it looks like someone might have gardened long ago, but now it's just a mass of greens. I like to have flowers from early spring to late fall, at least somewhere on my property. I even did this when I lived in the duplex in Lansing. It was heartbreaking this spring to watch my old tulips trying to come up, and being stifled in weeds, detritus and other junk.
So I'm going to garden at my new house. There is no flowerbed proper, so I will have some pretty serious work cut out to prepare one, but I'm not really discouraged by that. I only hope I can find the time to do it right. I got a few different kinds of bulbs that ought to be happy on the south side of my house; some brightly colored asiatic lilies, dahlias, and gladiolus. Hopefully they will not be too hard to keep, I would like them to come back year after year. Actually, I tried not to get any plants that would die off after just one season. I prefer to have them come back at least a few times, since they look more natural the second and third years.
On the east side of the house I'm planning on planting bellflowers, which I've never worked with before. They are supposed to be creepers, so I'm hoping they will take over a small area next to the porch and thrive there.
On the west wide of the house I'm going to put in a couple of beds of phlox. When I was a kid, we had phlox that grew out of control all summer long. My mom had to fight to keep it from taking over the garden. That's what I want, though. Basically I want to fill the area between my house and sidewalk with phlox and just let it go crazy there. Of course that depends on what the contractors end up doing with my porch, but that's another story. I'm hoping to create a sort of flower area around the base of one of the big trees in my western yard, so that I can have undergrowth-type plants there, and cover up the fact that the root system of that tree likes to conquer the grass.
I also got this really neat package of seeds called "aromatic ground cover" that contains clover, chamomile, yarrow, lemon thyme, sweet alyssum, white dutch clover. I'm planning to just let it loose in the yard and hope it takes over most of the lawn. The instructions say to mow it to about 4 inches, which sounds nice to me. I'm not a big mower of lawns. Besides, I never understood the idea of a homogenous green grass lawn with all the blades the same length. I prefer a softer look, with a sweeter fragrance, and more variety. It's another thing I don't really know how to do, but I'm looking forward to trying.
Of course I haven't made plans for the front of the house yet. Forest has suggested a large hanging box of plants for the area currently containing an evergreen wreath. That might be cool, although I have never tried box gardening before. I'm holding off on other plans until the porch is replaced. By then it might be too late to plant anything anyway, A gal can hope, right?
Forest is feeling better today, and I think he's kicking the cold that I got from his brother and passed on to him. I'm sure you don't want epidemiological data; suffice it to say that I can trace the path of this little nasty from one member of the family to the next. It's evil incarnate. I'm glad he's feeling better, though. I'm always happy to be able to soothe him, and he has recently been adopting a new attitude during minor illness, in which he actually likes to be held, cuddled, petted, and otherwise comforted. I'm glad to do al those things, of course... but I prefer him to be his normal, healthy, silly self.
Looks like I won't be able to game with my friends this week. It's Forest's turn to go. I guess that's just as well, though, since I have a cake to bake for my secretary's baby shower, and no other time to do it. I still don't know when I'm going to get her decorations or her gift. I was planning on doing it during lunch today, however I'm really starving, so it is no longer an option. I'm just going to have to eat instead.
I started reading a really interesting book yesterday called Bury Me Standing, by Isabel Fonseca. It's about the Rrom people (politically correct for "Gypsy"), and addresses their history, present, and possible futures. It's fascinating to me, because this is a group of people my European history classes ignored completely, because they weren't involved in the rise and fall of the great empires. Basically, I guess they are considered a group living on the fringe or outside of modern society, and therefore ignored. I'm really enjoying discovering more about them, especially since they are a mostly illiterate, nomadic people with a strong oral history and tradition of music and poetry. Mostly it's interesting to look at the facts compared with our perceptions of the gypsies. It's easy to romanticize their lives when we're settled people inside our safe society, but it's another story once I read about the way they actually live.
Amazing what I can find hanging around the Store. There are piles of books there for the reading.
Last night's bell choir rehearsal was long and frustrating. I think I preferred the old style of concert. We used to play about 2 solid hours of music, most of it challenging. Audiences seemed to enjoy it. Now we play a solid first half. Then, after intermission, we have a scripted show, with little snippets of songs here and there. It's not so much about ringing bells as it is being silly and attempting to be entertaining. I think the choir is better off sticking with what they are really good at, which is ringing bells. I'm not so keen on this other nonsense. I guess I can see where it's coming from, though. Many of those people have been ringing in that choir for 10 to 15 years. They understandably get tired of the same old format, and want to change. They are having a ball with creativity. So I'm keeping my mouth shut, and doing what I can to contribute. Oy.
I'm off to lunch with my honey!
