The search for rocks to build a new border for my defunct perennial bed is underway and I can’t tell you how thrilled I am.
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We went shopping…
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For rocks!
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Did I mention the aforementioned rocks are not cheap? Many rocks will be needed for this project so we drove around all day to multiple yards to compare prices.
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So.
Many.
Rocks!
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I think I died and went to heaven right on that spot.
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This will be our border. 1-3” fieldstone. 3,000 lbs a pallet.. and at $458 per it was the cheapest we found. The bed is 10’x20’ … I say we’ll need two pallets , maybe 3 for a finished bed border… the husband says we’ll start with one.
Silly man. Doesn’t he know you can never have too many rocks?
I used to have a beautiful perennial garden in our back yard. It was a lovely little brick bordered bed and over the years I filled it with a varied assortment of colorful flowers.
There was purple lupine.
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The harder to grow white lupine.
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And some fabulous red bee balm.
A few years in, a little apple tree seeded itself and since I didn’t have the heart to pull it up… it grew happily alongside the phlox, black eyed Susans and Shasta daisies.
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My garden made a wonderful foreground in photos of the big barn construction progress.
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And I had many happy years of bright blooms and vases full of freshly cut flowers.
Until my husband bought the beast.
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The monster zero turn lawn mower that flings grass clippings and weeds what seems like 100 miles. No matter how many times I begged him to reverse direction and steer clear, over the years my bed was overtaken by weeds. No matter how many of the damn things I pulled, dug up or chopped… I couldn’t contain the growth and they slowly started choking out my flowers.
By 2019 I gave up.
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I bought numerous bags of mulch.
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Weed whacked everything down to ground level…
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And covered the whole thing, leaving only the tree. And while I missed my riotous blooms, the aesthetic was pleasing enough to satisfy.
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Of course the husband and his big orange beast kept throwing grass in the bed so I kept getting down on my hands and knees to weed. Until I blew out my knee in the fall of 2020 and could no longer crouch or kneel without considerable pain.
So I gave up again, and now? It looks like this.
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A large brick bordered bed of weeds. It disgusts me on a daily basis but I vowed not to touch it again until a new, taller stone border could be built. And now that the husband is retired with nothing but time on his hands….?
A good movie and bucket of popcorn dripping in melted butter makes me happy. A popcorn engagement ring? Not so much….
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My engagement ring… bought after we were married because we like to do things backwards…reflects a 38 year old paycheck and while fine quality, it isn’t even a carat. So 3.66? Sure. Sign me up.
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But a diamond that’s shaped and colored like buttered popcorn?
I didn’t pee on my garden before I read this, but rest assured I shall be passing it along to my husband who has been known to relieve himself off the barn porch.
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I have never in my life urinated on a lawn and I don’t plan to start now. But men can be very dog like when it comes to marking their territory as evidenced by this photo of a conspicuous patch of dead lawn adjacent to the barn porch.
Hard as it is to believe after the apple tree planting fiasco of 2021, my husband was back at it the other day … ripping up the dead apple twigs and filling the holes with bigger and better new trees.
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He came home with a beautiful flowering cherry I would have loved for the back lawn where I could see it every day….
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So naturally he planted it on the far side of the barn where it’s completely blocked by the building and out of line of sight from our house.
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It will however be prime viewing when playing pool in the man cave.
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It’s a pretty tree and was an immediate bee magnet. In no time flat they were circling and we were stepping away.
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I might just have to buy another for my viewing pleasure.
Big momma woodchuck is out of hibernation and stuffing her face at a rapid pace.
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I’d thrown out bread for the birds earlier that morning but when I saw her arrive and start munching, I quickly gave her lettuce instead.
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You know, the head of iceberg lettuce my husband brought home from the store after I specifically wrote “green leaf, red leaf, Boston or romaine…. anything but iceberg!” on the grocery list.
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Even as hungry as momma chuck was….
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She left most of the tasteless crunchy white parts.
I think I may have mentioned my husband’s obsession with crap useless vintage items. I’ve spent nearly four decades watching him sort through dusty boxes at yard sales, flea markets and antique stores…. but last week he surprised even me.
When we moved back to Maine 20 years ago he had to start a new job before we sold our house, so I stayed down south for a few months while he bunked with a relative. Since he didn’t want to make the trip empty handed, he filled his truck with boxes and stored them in an uncle’s attic. I thought we’d collected all those boxes long ago, but after taking his uncle out to lunch last week we were told some of them were still upstairs.
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Did we find the boxes? Yes, after 3 seconds of scanning from the top step I pointed them out. Did that stop my treasure hunting husband from searching someone else’s junk for a heretofore unknown copy of the constitution or a Honus Wagner rookie card? No. It did not.
I’m happy to report he found nothing but junk which thankfully stayed where it was. And after opening our leftover boxes, I would have been happy to leave some of those there as well. They were heavy as hell and mostly filled with books and clothes.
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It was a bit like a time capsule. My Pat Conroy phase reared it’s head.. and 20 years later I had to wonder why I felt the need to schlepp those all the way to Maine. But it was when I examined the clothes that a little piece of me died.
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Because it was at that moment I realized I am literally twice the woman I used to be, and not in a good way.
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Lord Dudley Mountcatten helped me sort when we got home, though to be honest it wasn’t a tough job.
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Not one single thing fit. I mean, hell… it wasn’t even close. If there’s anything more depressing than being smacked in the face with your weight gain by a box full of size sixes and eights, I don’t know what it is.
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Oh, well. I did manage to dig out a few pieces of long lost jewelry … and they don’t care what size I am.
Today was the day, and I just spent the last 24 hours prepping my husband for his close up.
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Add a little chicken broth and a whole lotta Gatorade and you’re looking at everything my husband has had to eat for a day and a half. To say he was cranky this morning was a gross understatement.
New hospital policy had me sitting outside in my car during the procedure as I was no longer allowed in the waiting room. He wasn’t supposed to drive after the colonoscopy, so I was his taxi. The paperwork made it quite clear what’s forbidden and while I can understand not driving or operating heavy machinery after the relax and unpucker your butt medication, it also said you can’t cook.
Are they afraid your addled brain will add too much garlic to the Scampi…. or over sear the pot roast? Unfortunate, but hardly deserving of a medical warning.
All went well and nothing that shouldn’t have been there was found. As we were walking out of the hospital the husband gave me a blow by blow description I could have done without, but he watched the whole thing on some kind of video screen and was eager to share.
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Good thing there was a wall of Mark Chagall chicken prints for me to focus on instead.
The husband and I were on our way home from the grocery store the other day when he spotted an antique store he’d never been in. I wondered how that was even possible, but hey… it happens.
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When we walked in, I turned right and he turned left. It wasn’t long before I heard him haggling with the owner so I hightailed it over before things got serious.
Old cash registers. Fancy ones I grant you….
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But with a price tag of $2,500? I gave the husband the evil eye.
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And with a $4,500 price tag on this one?
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I was positively pulling him out of the store.
It was fabulous. But not that fabulous.
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Where there's only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous.
