I'm tired and moody tonight. As I told the man this afternoon, I have never felt younger inside. He didn't understand and asked me to explain. I am absolutely overwhelmed, and feeling at sixes and sevens, not sure I have the coping skills to be an adult right now. I'm going to pretend it was just because I overdid it today. I did spend far more time in the sun than I am supposed to (by a factor of a hundred, I think). I tried being covered up. I wore a hat most of the time I was out. I wore long sleeves. But after a while, all that didn't matter anymore. I helped put plants in the ground, including all of the peat pots full of herbs I've been hanging on to for a week. I weeded the front bed (with the sun slanting down, reaching under my hat at an angle). I watered. So maybe I wasn't the one wielding the shovel, nor the one taking wheelbarrows full of sod to the back yard as a few dozen plants and bulbs went into the front corner. I still wore myself out working at my own level. And when I was tired, we went out and shopped for more things for the yard. I practiced as much restraint as I could, preferring to search for non-plant kitschy yard art rather than things that would die if they weren't stuck in the ground and watered. But even so, foolishly we looked at each other, when we climbed into the car in the Home Depot parking lot, and said, "Should we go to the Flower Bin?" "Yeah, let's do it." I had to dig deeper and find a whole new reserve of strength not to buy the whole store out. A few small perennials later (a forget-me-not, a gold-leafed vinca, and day lillies called "Pandora's Box" and "Bela Lugosi"), and I made it out of there without bankrupting us. Now I have to find the wherewithal to find spots for them, dig the holes myself, and get them planted before they die in the pots. And here we circle back to wondering how exactly I am going to adult my way through it.
Park West is going to be incredible when the front corner is established. The rest of the lilacs have gone in the ground, and the beginnings of a lush bed have been dug. Now in the ground are purple salvia, yellow broom, two golden alyssum, nandina, hydrangea, dianthus, sixteen gladiolus bulbs, eight hollyhock rhizomes, and a peony that may or may not survive. This summer will tell the tale whether they all grow in, but next year will be the big payoff. When it all comes back in and fills in all the holes, it will be the greatest screen from all the traffic on that awful busy street. I'm so tired of hearing engines roar as people zoom down the two blocks between the streetlight and the stop sign, as if it is worth it to exceed the speed limit by 50% or more in that little stretch. Really, what is the point there? I can't tell, but it seems like the more we glare at those jerkwad drivers, the more the Mr yells when they go by, the faster they are going, and the more they find some reason to honk or yell in front of my house. It happened three times this evening. This is a war I really don't want to have. If it means I make a new version of the thicket I had back at the Original Park to dampen sound, just watch me. I'll do it.
I hope I took as many pictures as I think I did today. My luck they will mostly be repeats of the same shots over the course of the day. It's the time of year that I really have to step up my game. I don't have quite as many zones as the Original Park, but I'm going to do my best to make it good.
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