Day: April 28, 2008

I had no idea that 7 yards of mulch would look like a small hill.

It seems like it is way too much for our 1/3 acre yard. It’s true that we do have a huge amount of our yard dedicated to flowers, shrubs, and trees. We have one garden that wraps around the entire house. Then, we have two side gardens that hug the property line between us and our neighbors to the left of us. Not satisfied with the amount of gardening that needs to get done each Spring, I have been planting more. Ground cover, a male Holly (to pollinate with my female Holly), Columbine flowers, Blue fescue, lilies, and one annual plant have already been put in the ground. I am still waiting for three more plants to arrive. Plus, I still have my wild flower garden to seed. This small hill of mulch should not only make sure these plants succeed by keeping the ground moist longer, it should also cut my summer weeding job in half. Here’s hoping!

The smaller mound, protected by the blue tarp, is 1 yard of topsoil. I’ll be planting my vegetable garden this weekend! I have only planted tomatoes and herbs in the past. I’m shaking things up this year. I’ll be planting onions, eggplant, anise, mint, and strawberries. Of course, I’ll also plant tomatoes. Maybe this year, I’ll yield enough of a crop to make homemade tomato sauce and tomato soup.

Though my plan was to take today off and work in my garden, the weather had other plans. Instead, I’ll read your blogs, knit on my Christmas tie, and make lemon bars for dessert. Despite the fact that my plans were skunked, Jake’s were not. He still got his walk this morning. Even after drying and brushing him for 15 minutes after we got home, he still smells like a wet dog.

On a more sobering note, there is another reason I titled this post “Small Hills to Scale”. You may have already noticed the new button on my blog in the left side bar.

My husband’s Aunt Kathy (my MIL’s sister) was recently informed that she would need a kidney transplant. The process to find a donor has already begun. It is almost certain that a donor will be located, since Dan comes from a large family. To help cover the many expenses associated with transplantation, fund raising efforts have begun. The family will be hosting a Beef -N- Beer event. My contribution was to create Aunt Kathy her own website on WordPress: http://KathysKidneyFund.com. Dan helped me activate the Paypal button, since it wasn’t a simple copy and paste of the code. He actually had to edit the HTML code. I know a little HTML code, but it’s a drop in the bucket compared to my computer engineer husband.