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Today was a busy day. Well not that busy, but I guess I'm not yet up to full speed.

We started out this morning with a trip to the dump to get more soil. Which almost turned into a disaster, when the truck stalled out about a half-mile from the house, and wouldn't start again. We sat there in the middle of an intersection trying to start it for a few minutes, feeling a bit of panic (and also gratitude at the lack of traffic due to the early hour) Luckily a kind member of Durham's finest showed up. He blocked the street and helped us push the truck into a parking lot. Where it started up again, on the first try! We think it maybe just needed to warm up. Next time we drive the truck on a cold morning, we'll let the engine run for a minute or two before starting out.

Georg had to do the world show this afternoon, so I went out to the farmer's market alone. Last week we had spoken to one of our favorite vendors, Messenbrink, about a particular alstroemeria, and he had promised to bring it for us this weekend. So we pretty much owed it to him to show up and buy it.

Turns out that a cold holiday weekend is not a good time to go to the farmer's market. Hardly any plant vendors were there! At least Messenbrink was there, and so was my alstroemeria.

There's a place right across from the farmer's market that sells concrete lawn sculptures. We've driven past it for years, and never stopped in. On a whim I stopped today. It was mostly the usual: religious sculptures, fountains, etc. But the big score: they have a whole section of tiki sculptures! I got a big moai! I've been searching online for one of these for years. Who knew I was driving right past one every weekend!

The folks at the lawn sculpture place were really nice. I talked to them for awhile. I'd really like to get a rough-hewn trough, the kind of thing that looks like it was found in an excavation, after having been used for hundreds of years by Scottish sheep farmers or something. They said they wanted to carry that kind of thing and they were looking into hypertufa.* I hope they do!

(*Hypertufa is a mixture of concrete and peat moss. After a few months the peat degrades, leaving a rough, pitted surface that looks aged. I've been thinking myself about learning how to work with hypertufa, but I'd honestly rather buy it from someone else and use my time working on my garden and my art car.)

They loaded the moai into my car for me. Good thing too, as it weighs 180 pounds and I'm not allowed to lift more than 20. I'm not sure how Georg is going to move it out to the garden. In the wheelbarrow I guess. It would be much better if we had a hand truck. Maybe we should buy a hand truck. We're going to need one anyway to build that stone wall around the new blueberry bed.

On my way home from the farmer's market I stopped at the grocery store and at Big Orange to get winterizing supplies for the blueberry bushes. About which I am fairly concerned. All five bushes have flowers and fruit at various stages of growth. And all of them are at risk from cold damage tonight. What a bummer that would be, if the first year we can harvest blueberries and they all get frozen in this wretched cold snap!

Anyway. I was toodling around the store, getting stakes and plastic sheets (and also some marigolds while I was there) and I suddenly crashed. Hit the wall as they say. This is going to sound pathetic but I actually had to rest in my car for a few minutes before driving home. It didn't seem like I had done that much. Then again, there was a lot of driving. And the truck is hard to drive when it's loaded with soil. And the weight of the moai also affected my car's handling. And there was a lot of walking around the lawn ornament place and the farmer's market and the supermarket and Big Orange. Sheesh, I guess I did do a lot.

Georg did all the work of covered the blueberries and then cooked dinner. Because as I may have mentioned, he is Mayor Awesomeness of Awesometown. I've had my butt parked on the couch for the rest of the afternoon. Just finished watching parts 3 and 4 of The Six Wives of Henry VIII.