5 days away and what a difference...

We left for a conference last Wednesday and left the yard well tended and in the care of neighbors. It never fails to amaze me how much and how fast things grow at this time of year. In the winter we can go weeks with no real change, but in June things change almost before your eyes, and certainly a great deal is different when you go away for 5 days and come back.



When we left we had just gotten everything planted and settled in. Now it seems to be well established. The tiny rabbits that seem to be all over the yard are consuming things every day, but even they can't keep up with the amount of growth that is going on.When we got back the grass needed cutting, and I had a pretty full day dragging the compost container around the yard and filling it over and over with the spent flowers of the columbine, the fully blooming flowers of the lambs ears that needed to be removed before they set seed, and various other things gone past their prime. Almost all the tulips are ready to be plucked out, the terrible weeds are few and easily identifiable.



A technique that I use to identify the weeds easily is possibly indicative of my personality: I scan the garden I'm working on and hope to find perfection. Inevitably, something that just isn't right sticks out and becomes all I can see. It is usually a weed, and I can take care of it. This tendancy leads me to be pulling and cutting out weeds pretty much any time I walk around the garden seeking perfection that is never quite there. But it serves me well in getting closer and closer.