Whew.

I've been working my toosh off the last few days. Hacking, pruning, pulling, planting, fertilizing, spreading compost (from my Mom and incredibly rich and dense) and planning. I do believe there is a slight skin differentiation on my back (i.e. I call it a tan, but everyone else is like, "where?").

What is rather sad is that its nothing that people would notice. Its been background work, getting ready for bigger stuff. I'm re-doing our gate area. The previous owners planted... stuff...? back there that requires far too much tending for stuff that looks like weeds. I moved the plants I liked, then tomorrow I'll have Jason mow the rest down, then I'll kill it all. We'll then lay fresh gravel on the path and over the flower beds. As this particular area isn't visible from the door or most of the backyard, I have no idea why they planted all this crap back there.

Everything is blooming though. With the warm weather, lots of roses have popped out. One bush has beautiful pink/white blooms as big as my hand and smells like heaven. I should get a picture because those, along with my purple rhodies and yellow, red and orange roses make a very pretty picture. None of my backyard roses have bloomed yet but my dahlias are just about ready to burst.

I also fought a nasty, bloody battle with the encroaching blackberry bushes. They started growing through the trees with vines that were nearly an inch thick. I hacked and slashed and will spray them tomorrow as well. I like having a dense undergrowth behind our yard (keeps the dog and kids in) but I can't have these people eaters hanging in the yard, just waiting to snag a victim.

Recently, I've been watching the mini-series, "Roots". I thought I'd seen it as a child, but I don't think so now. None of it seems familiar. However, its fantastic. Utterly, completely, wonderfully fantastic. I think everyone should see it. I have 3 more DVD's to go and I already want to restart from the beginning.

Oh, and finally, my watch arrived! I can't recall if I mentioned it before, but Jason got me a fancy timepiece for Mothers Day but it was DOA. So we sent it back and heard nothing for two weeks. They didn't return phone calls or emails. So finally Jason gets them on the phone and they sent the watch to be repaired and were going to send us that one. Uh, no. We bought a NEW watch and we want a NEW watch. Not a refurb. Two days later my beautiful watch appeared and I just love it. Its a Citizen Eco-drive J Class. Solar powered baby!

Well off to bed to watch my latest Roots installment.