Category: Bummers

I’ve got a backlog of pictures from last weekend to get out over the next few days. My major accomplishment Sunday was repairing the water garden. The warm winter was easy on the fish. (The spring-fed pool was frozen over only maybe a dozen nights all season.) But the freezing and thawing heaved the surrounding soil and sent a lot of the edging stones into the water. It was a real mess:

I straightened things out as best I could, hauled out the whiskey-barrel liner with the mini-water lilies, and trimmed the dead foliage off the potted emergents. But I’ve got to dig up or buy some flat stones and rebuild the edges or this is only going to get worse.

The ugly pile with the pond liner scraps in the background is going to be my ‘mud man’ sculpture. More on that project as it evolves.

While I decide whether or not to take GardenRant up on their very kind offer of free Sloggers, I thought it best if I review what I already have. Being ‘green’, I want to make sure that I’m not engaged in mindless consumerism or becoming a slave to the gardening fashionistas.

	Aldo Sandals	Fake ‘Merrells’	K-Mart Sneaks
Description:	Son’s locker room wear during ’01-’02 hoops season	Impulse buy from Walmart clearance bin circa 2003.	6 months of office attire before called for garden duty
Price:	No clue	$12	$19
Off/On:	No bending involved.	Requires finger at the heal standing on one foot.	Requires socks, knots — what a hassle.
‘Puttering’:	Perfect	OK	Too much work to put on
Shoveling:	Ouch	Light digging	Pogo in tight soil
Mowing:	Too slick	Eh	Perfect
Snow:	Dusting to 1″	Up to 3″	Up to 6″
Temperature:	> 25F	> 10F with socks	Down to -10F
Smell factor:	Funky but cleans up nicely	Amorphophallus in flower	Biohazard
Other uses:	Walking the dogs, ‘visiting Quito’	Considered evening wear in Ithaca	Rodent repellent

They get bold this time of the year. Despite the dogs (well they were inside at the time), this doe and her buddy were within 20 yards of the house. It’s why I like to focus on plants deer don’t like.