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We got the chain saw working yesterday. Yay! It took forever, because we didn't understand the starting directions at first. You have to open up the choke all the way, then pull the cord just until it starts to fire. Then close the choke and keep pulling the cord until it catches. We left the choke open, so we were just pulling the starter over and over, and flooding the engine.

But we did figure it out eventually and get the saw running. Georg cut down a tree! Well okay, really a sapling. Just a bit too big for me to encircle with my two hands. (Which is smaller than most of you will imagine because I have small hands. Speaking of which, I recently discovered the cost-saving tip that kid's gardening gloves fit me better and cost half as much.) We also cut up a bunch of fallen wood that had been laying around. We have several more saplings that need to go, but we were so worn out from trying to start the darned saw that we had to leave them for another day.

Georg had used a chain saw before but I never had, so I was a total safety freak. Which is not a bad thing when dealing with such a dangerous tool, I think. Goggles of course, also I made Georg wear a hard hat, and tried to convince him to wear his leather jacket but he didn't want to mess it up. I did some sawing too, cutting up the sapling once it was on the ground, and Georg showed me how to hold the saw so that if it kicked back, it would go away from me. It didn't kick, but it was hard to control because of the vibrations. Also I noticed that sometimes when you let go of the trigger, the blade keeps moving. Which was a bit scary.

Even though we only got one sapling cut down, the backyard is already starting to look bigger. It's going to look huge when we get the rest of them down. It was a great weekend besides the chain saw victory too. Yesterday morning I help Lisa sew curtains for 9 Westy. We only got one curtain most of the way made, but it was the most complicated one, and made of a slippery fabric, so I was glad to be able to help. Then before the sawing I spent some time in the afternoon hauling and stacking the logs from that felled tree.

I worked out a system for moving the logs which perfectly encapsulates my "macho woman/wussy girl" approach: First, turn over log. Inspect for creepy crawlies. If found, squeal and jump back. Wait for creepy crawlies to disperse. Carry or roll log (depending on size) over to woodpile; heave up onto pile. If carrying, be sure no part of body except gloved hands touch log. Actually, it's not totally ridiculous to be so concerned about the critters, because poisonous brown recluse spiders love to nest in rotting wood. And I know several people who have been bitten. So there's a good reason to be squeamish. The wussiest thing I did was when a bug flew up and bumped into my nose. I reached up to brush it off, thought it had gone inside my nose, and started freaking out, "eee"ing and trying to yank out ... my nose ring. Good thing I figured out what was going on before I succeeded in pulling it out!

Saturday was fun too. It was a great mail day: I got my invitation to the Chapel Hill Christmas parade, some blueberry plants I had mail ordered, and best of all, a wonderful gift from my friend Nellorat. It's a little box decorated with charms that represent all different parts of my life. The art car, my dogs, computing, music, tarot, sewing, gardening .. it's all there. I just can't get over how thoughtful it is. I'm trying to decide what to put in it. Maybe ribbons or buttons.

We hadn't gone to the mail center in a few days so we weren't sure how long the blueberry plants had been sitting there. So, after giving them a few hours in the shade to get used to being outside again, we planted them that day. They are so cute! We put them near the big pine tree where they'll get lots of sun, also the soil should be nice and acidic which blueberries like. They aren't supposed to bear fruit until the year after next, but I bought varieties that are supposed to cross-pollinate well so I hope we'll get lots of fruit.

Then I mowed the lawn, which is definitely the most boring part of yardwork. Too bad it has to be done so often. At least I feel all environmentally virtuous since we use an electric mower. While I was doing that, Georg started working on pulling up the bamboo in the back yard. We got instructions on how to deal with it from that show Gardening by the Yard. (By the way, I love that show.) The bad news is that bamboo will come back from even the smallest piece of root. But the good news is that when unobstructed, the roots are shallow. So we'll probably have to dig up that entire area, but at least we won't have to dig too deep. The area where it's growing was used by previous owners for an above-ground pool. Georg said the bamboo comes up really easily from the gravel around the pool area, but clings tenaciously to the sand that was directly under the pool.

The hard part will be preventing the bamboo from invading again. Our neighbors have a huge growth of it. (And can I just say, I think planting invasive bamboo on the edge of your property is just as rude and stupid as letting your teenage son's rock band practice outside with the amps turned up to 11.) According to Gardening by the Yard, the one effective way to keep bamboo out is to dig a trench 30" deep and install a thick underground barrier. (you can also use this barrier to keep bamboo in, if you want to plant it but prevent it from spreading.) I'm sure that will be fun. Once we get it all pulled up, we can measure and find out how much of the barrier we need to order. I don't think they sell it at Home Depot.

I didn't have much time for gardening this week but I did get one major project done: laying down newspaper and mulch all along the sunny side of the house. That area is supposed to be grass, but it gets all weedy and gross and it's difficult to mow because there are a lot of small stumps. With the mulch down it looks a lot neater, and next spring it will be ready to plant up. I left the newspaper off the front right corner of the bed because there's a bit of mint growing there that I want to keep. I know mint has a tendency to take over, but I have so much space to fill that it might not be such a bad thing.

The house both shelters that area from the coldest winds, and also reflects afternoon light. So I think that bed will probably be the warmest part of the yard in winter. I'm hoping to plant some things that are iffy for our region, like gardenia and dahlia. And I'd love to grow a fig tree, and this bed seems like the only good place for it. Also the herb garden will probably expand into that space. ooh, maybe a bay leaf! They're not supposed to survive our winters but Nancy has one in her sheltered backyard that's the size of a small tree. I'm going to have a lot of fun planning this bed over the winter.

In other gardening news, the nasturtiums are coming up! We have seven little sprouts. That's only a third of the seeds I planted, but I'm hoping there will be more by next week. Also, the goth pansy bed looks great. I'll take a picture when they've grown a little. Right now the little plantlings are too far apart and it's hard to get the different colors in one photo. All the perennial herbs look good except the tarragon, which has gotten all leggy and half-dead. I don't know what's wrong with it, but we rarely use tarragon anyway so I won't be heartbroken if it doesn't survive.

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.