Blowing the stink off

Almost all of my gardening knowledge comes from reading The Secret Garden in grade school.
This unfortunately means that for me, "gardening" translates into wandering around with a pocketknife whispering, "Dost tha' think 'tis wick?"

What this means in plain language is that the afternoon the girls and I spent weeding today will either yield a prettier yard in the Spring, or a dead one. I have no way of knowing which it will be.

We had a really good time, though! The weather was beautiful, and it just felt so good to get outside for a good long time. The girls were very helpful, picking up the piles (and piles and piles) of dead stuff I'd hacked up and carrying them over to the fire pit. At first I was overwhelmed by the amount of debris I was making, and I couldn't figure out how I was going to fit all of that into the trash cans, but then I remembered -- hey! I have a fire pit! I felt very resourceful as we fed the dead....whatever they were into the fire.

It's a good feeling to have spent the day working outside, and despite the fact that I am an enormous 34 weeks pregnant and had an entourage of prissy little girls as my labor force, we got quite a lot done. There is still that patch beside the house to do, and part of one down by the swingset, but I distinctly heard....something, and it seemed best to leave that to when Chris is around to shield the girls from my terrified reactions. Uh, or to just let Chris tackle it himself. I love it here in the fake country, but I'm still a city girl when it comes to critters.