It's been a gardening weekend. On Friday my friend David lent me his truck so I could get two truckloads of mulch. At first the plan was for him to drive, but at some point we realized that there was no need for him to spend his whole day helping me get mulch, when I could just borrow the truck and do it myself. So we got the first load of much, I dropped him off at his house, went home and unloaded it, then went back and got another.
It was a lot of shoveling (I wish there had been someone around to get a photo of me standing in the truck, pitchfork in hand, knee deep in mulch), but I think driving the truck was more tiring. An older Chevy small truck (X10 maybe?) lacking power steering or power brakes, it was more difficult to handle than the much larger Ford F150 I drove before getting Undersea Mah Jongg. The braking was a bit scary to be honest. I'm just lucky that the first time I tried to brake was at the mulch place with nothing around, because I tapped the brake the way I would with my car, and sailed right past the place where I expected to stop. If I had been in traffic, I would have plowed into whatever was in front of me! But once I got used to the effort and time required to stop, it was fine. I just had to go slow, start braking really early, and sit up a bit off the seat so I could put all my weight into it.
The other odd feature of the truck is that you don't need the key to start it: just turn the thing that the key goes into and it starts right up. This is actually kind of cool, because in future I'll be able to borrow the truck anytime, even if David isn't home to give me the key. (no I wouldn't be stealing! he said I could.) My old Toyota had similar key quirks. I never tried to start it without the key, but I do remember that you could remove the key while it was running.
So anyway, it took most of the day, but I was much less tired than I would have expected to be after shoveling two truckloads of mulch. I even had the energy to mulch the hydrangea bed in front of the house. They're looking really good. Even the one that got banged up in transit has lots of little growth tips. And one of them has a flower bud for next year! It's the "regula," which is supposed to have purple and white flowers. I'm actually wondering if I should snip off the bud so it will put its energy next spring into growing roots. It would be so nice to have a flower though. I might write to the nursery who sold it to me and ask them.
Yesterday we took a load of trash to the dump before returning the truck to David. You know, if I were driving behind an old truck, with the back end bashed in, piled high with junk that isn't tied down, going 5 mph below the speed limit, would I tailgate? Um, no, I think I'd give it as much room as possible. Because maybe there's a reason it's going so slow? Unfortunately this logic escaped the idiot woman who tailgated me the whole length of Carver St. before finally passing me on a double yellow line, cutting back in so close that I had to swerve to the right to avoid rear-ending her. I try really hard to contain myself and not to antagonize other drivers but I couldn't help myself, I stuck my arm out the window and gave her the finger. It's not like a soccer mom in a minivan is going to start a fist fight or anything, even if she does drive like a maniac. Besides, I could have taken her.
Anyway after returning the truck we went out to the farmer's market. We always have a great time there and this week the pumpkin vendors are out in force. We didn't buy a pumpkin but we did buy a beautiful perennial sunflower and a marjoram from one of my favorite plant vendors, and a flat of pansies. They had black pansies! I've never seen that before. We got black, crimson and dark purple for a little goth pansy bed up by the house. Also some normal pansies (yellow with red centers, white with blue centers, that sort of thing) for down by the road.
I planted the sunflower and pansies yesterday and today, while Georg spread mulch and did some weed wacking. Also we hung up some more bird feeders in front, because the birds found the ones already out there. We've been getting titmice, chickadees, cardinals and best of all, two goldfinches (male and female). Yay! The goldfinches really like this little mesh bag of thistle, and the other birds like the squirrel-proof feeder (the kind with the tray that closes if there's too much weight on it). We added a tube feeder with sunflower seeds, and a little mesh box of suet, which we read that woodpeckers like, because I've seen a couple of woodpeckers hanging out in the dogwood. I hope they find it and do like it.
Last night we went to an opening at Tyndall, and a fun party at Shayne and Dave's. Georg, Lisa and I were the last guests to leave, and I was a little worried about staying too late but Shayne and Dave didn't seem overtired or anxious for us to go. It's pretty rare for me to close down a party anyway. During the evening they showed a DVD of the Wattstax concert (the "Black Woodstock" according to the box). It was on in the background so I didn't watch too closely, but it looked like a really good movie. I'm going to check and see if Netflix has it.
This morning I slept rather too late, went to Home Depot with Georg in the morning, finished planting the pansies, and then reviewed a couple of CDs for the station. Georg made a fabulous pot roast for dinner and I made Julia Child-style broccoli (baked in butter and parmesan cheese) to go with it. And that prtty much wraps up the weekend. Now I'm off to Stoneline, their computer is acting up again and I won't have time to help them tomorrow. Sigh.
Mmm. Truck. Mulch. And wonderful weather.