twinkling tuesday

even though we're back to it this week, i'm blessed with a part time job. go to work monday, have tuesday off. sweet.



one of my new year's resolutions is to get more fit. part of my plan is to walk daily, which i've been doing for the most part (or, every other daily). on sunday tashi, dan and i walked part of trail near monticello. today, very soon in fact, i plan to go there and walk the whole thing. it's not long. but the luxury of being able to take a walk by myself is making me a little giddy.



we've also been doing some yardwork in our spring like weather of late. today it's expected to be in the low 70's. yeesh. we didn't manage to rake the yard this autumn, but i think it helped the grass survive drought like conditions. instead of getting burnt, the leaves protected the grass and allowed some moisture to remain.



raked not raked

we're currently in the process of raking leaves up into our scrubby areas along the edges of the yard. hopefully this will deter some of the poison ivy growth just a little. i also prepared a sheet mulch area along the edge of our little front yard. i've always envisioned a flower garden there, preferably a tall cottage garden. my sheet mulch, a layer of cardboard topped with dead leaves, will hopefully kill a strip of grass and leave a layer of dirt that i can plant in. i didn't add compost or anything, but will do so once the grass dies away. we'll see how it goes!


lovely cardboard, on which leaves were later piled

sometimes it's difficult to find the will to put a lot of effort into the yard of a rental. it makes you more attached when the time comes to move on. then again, it's nice to leave a stamp of beauty behind. in our old yard in ann arbor (a magnificent two acres of woods, pond & meadow)i planted a lot of tall flowers around our deck, and created a medicinal herb garden in the middle of the yard. last summer when we drove by, i saw my mugwort and nettles towering. it was so nice to see that the new tenants hadn't removed the "weeds" and seemed to instead be honoring them.

slowly, slowly we've been working on the yard of our current abode. we cleared out the hugely overgrown area around the hammock and that has become a zone of bliss. we cleared out some invasive scrub around the deck so that now we have a view across the yard into the nice patch of woods. i've attempted to encourage growth in the planters around the front of our house. but this spring i have high hopes for a real garden. perhaps not food just yet, but some beneficial herbs and flowers, flowers, flowers.

what seeds will you sow in the new year?