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Yesterday afternoon my gardening chore was to dig up those brambles along the driveway. It's not as fun as planting flowers, but I feel good about having done it. I worked for about an hour and made a pretty good dent in them. The only problem is, I'm not sure how much of the root system needs to be removed. Some places I was able to pull up several feet of root, but in other places I could only get the big rhizome. If they need that rhizome to survive, then it may only take us a year or so to eradicate them. But if they can come back from any root, then we'll never be rid of them. They have roots criss-crossing that entire bank, and I'm afraid to till because the main sewer pipe is right under there, I'm not sure how deep.

Then last night my friend Patricia and I went to AV Geeks in Raleigh. She had never been before, and she loved it (of course!). The show, "Drinky Drink," was (as you might guess) all short films about alcohol. Most of them were negative, PSAs about the perils of drinking and so forth, but he did a good job of presenting films that were funny and/or interesting, not too much of a downer (for instance, he avoided the gory drunk driving films they used to show in driver education programs). There was even an episode of Fat Albert! Although for me, the most interesting part of the show was the videotapes of Japanese TV he showed before the "Drinky Drink" program began. Included were a deranged game show about (I think) two Japanese men sent to Latin America to be migrant farm workers, and an appalling comedy show in which one member of the comedy troupe needed to have a mole removed, but instead of going to a doctor the troupe came up with inventive ways to remove the mole. (He did go to a doctor at the end, after the series of disgusting mole removal methods all failed.)

This morning I drove Georg to work, then since I was half-way there already I went on to the farmer's market. Bought peaches and some plants. The peaches weren't as nice as last time (they don't give free samples on weekdays so I had to guess which were the nice ripe ones), but I did well on the plants. I got some sad, scraggly herbs -- regular thyme, tricolored sage, and chamomile -- for 75¢ each at the big nursery, then went down to the stalls and bought some flowers and a couple more herbs.

There's one plant seller at the farmer's market that I like in particular. They're called Archer something, Archer Farms maybe. They carry the kinds of plants I want, their signage is very helpful, and so are their staff. I bought blue balloon flowers to go with the white ones, black-eyed susans, something called "obediant plant" (spiked flowers that don't need staking! yay for the book of lists!), chives and greek oregano (to go with the mexican oregano). I ought to find out where the Archer people's nursery is located. I bet they have a lot more plants there than at the farmer's market. (Lisa, they have many different types of ferns -- you might want to check them out when you're ready to plant.)

When I got home there were of course a couple of "oh my god where are you??" work crises. After dealing with them I went ahead and planted the herbs, but saved the flowers until the weekend, after the mulch is down. The herb garden is starting to look nice! I'm trying to plant them far enough apart that they won't end up horribly crowded. But I've probably miscalculated and will end up moving some things next year.

While I was working a neighbor from across the street came over and introduced himself. It was kind of embarrassing to have to admit that no, we hadn't just moved in, we've just been slack-asses about the yard. But he seemed like a nice guy and didn't say anything judgemental about the formerly appalling yard conditions. And he was nice about the dogs & didn't mind them barking at him while he walked over, so he wins bonus points in my book.

The weird part of the conversation was that apparently the landscapers had told him Georg was "just getting back," and somehow in his mind he added "...from Iraq" to that sentence. So he had this romantic idea in his head of me as a grieving war wife, hiding behind all that overgrowth while my husband was on active duty. And then when he got back we were so happy we cleared out the yard, opening our home to the world again. It was such a great story that I hated to disabuse him of it.

We also talked briefly about Rod Torfulson's Armada. He asked me if I played drums because he had heard them recently, and I just pointed next door. He said that he's a music teacher (teaches piano in his house, how cool is that) so he also plays drums sometimes. But he doesn't have the amps cranked up to 11, thank god. I told him that we were hoping to reach a compromise with the kids where they could practice their music without it being so noisy. And without us losing our minds, bleeding from the ears, or calling the cops. Actually I didn't say that part out loud.

This street isn't designed for foot traffic (busy road, no sidewalk), and I've never been very outgoing with neighbors, so it was nice to meet a neighbor and have a pleasant conversation. And not feel like I had to apologize for bringing down his property values.

So we've decided on a plan of action for the back yard. See, the landscapers told us that the back yard was going to be more work than the front, which I assume means it will cost more. Meanwhile we noticed that one of the trees in back is looking sickly, if not dead. The tree looms over our shed and is also tall enough to hit the house. Clearly, that's the priority. So here's our schedule for backyard work:

1. take chain saw in for repair (check! did that yesterday.)
2. cross our fingers that Frances lands someplace else and tree does not fall on house or shed.
3. get chain saw back next week. Use it to cut down "volunteer" saplings (I love this term!) that are blocking access to the tree.
4. Hire tree guy to remove tree.
5. Hire landscapers to come back and do the rest of the back yard when we have the money together, probably October.