More on gardening

All of Chapel Hill is hazy today and oddly enough, it's because there's a big forest fire in Georgia right now. Georgia! It's windy, sure, but somehow this is an amazing phenomenon to me. It takes 4 hours to drive to Georgia from here, you know?

Got outside to do a little gardening today despite my post-lunch urge to nap. A nice glass of sweet iced tea stiffened by resolve to get some more damn plants in the ground before it gets too hot to be worth it. It's only May, but it's been in the mid-80's lately and not getting any cooler. The front yard is shaping up nicely. We've taken up quite a bit of our large front lawn and installed a huge planting bed instead, in case I haven't mentioned that. Before you start clamoring for pictures, though, let me just say that it's just not that pretty yet. The shrubs and trees I've put in are nowhere near their bushy, mature size and so things out there look mulchy and sparse to my eye. Maybe next year when it's all filled in a bit...

In the meantime, I'm hoping not to be quite such a landscaping widow to Husband's pond-building obsession soon. While I went through my part of the girls' bedtime routine last night--the stories and teeth-brushing part--he made a beeline for the fully dark backyard to work on the pond. After he put Bean down and sang her a song and wished Sister goodnight--his part of the routine--he practically ran outside again before I could stop him and stayed out til 9:30, fer chrissakes! This weekend's supposed to be nice, too, so I expect we'll be hanging around the house. Again.

Lest I sound like I'm complaining I have to admit here, though, that the pond is beginning to look really lovely, even half-finished and with black plastic pond liner still showing. Can't wait to plant there, too!