PLEASE PASS THE BENGAY

Bleeding Hearts and Brunnera.

A fountain in our front yard that was a Valentine's gift from Paul a few years ago.

One of my favorite plants in the garden, variegated Solomon's Seal, leaping out of the ground.  In a week or two, it will be gorgeous.

Diminutive little Hepatica with it's perfect little bouquet.

A Red Bud tree in my front yard.

Paul and I worked out in the yard all weekend, in between rainstorms that is!  I am so sore.  How do you avoid the 'first full weekend of gardening' sore muscles?  There must be some set of stretches that a person could do for a few days before you head out into the yard, but I've never found what they are.  I go through it every year.  I over do it and then I spend the next 3 or 4 days feeling elderly.  I thought Paul was going to have to help me off of the sofa tonight!  We got lots done and the yard is looking good, so it was worth it.  We have 2 fountains, one that we keep going all winter and another that we shut off when it freezes.  Paul got them both cleaned up and running and they look lovely.  The birds love them.  I cut down all of our many ornamental grasses and raked up what seemed to be a million bushels of oak leaves.  All of this ends up in our compost bins, which are already filling up.  I think we could have an Olympic pool-sized compost bin, and it still wouldn't be big enough!  It's been raining hard all evening, which is great for all of the plants, which seem to just fling out of the ground this time of year.  But not so great for my tree planting plans for this week.  We were having 3 more large trees planted this week, but it looks like the weather will be causing us to delay.  The trees are large blue spruces that have to be transplanted with the same big tree spade that brought our new Maple tree.  We've had so much rain this weekend that I'm afraid that the spade would just sink in the soil and tear up the garden.  Darn.  Keep your fingers crossed for clear weather this week!

No more yard work for me for the next few days, I'm afraid.  I'm teaching a metal-etching class tomorrow night and I have a trunk show in Waterloo next weekend to get ready for.  I'll be in the studio all week, no matter how nice it is outside.  Maybe that will give my muscles time to heal!