Hmmm

Did you know that April is Nation­al Gar­den­ing Month? So I have an excuse for my obses­sion for now.

I think one of the rea­sons that I’m so much more into gar­den­ing now than ever before is that this is OUR house. We aren’t renting.

I’ve lived in not-rental hous­es in the past, but I was in sucky, non-sup­port­ive rela­tion­ships at the time, and/or I had an infant at home. That does­n’t leave much ener­gy for, oh, any­thing else.

But this is home. It’s ours. We plan to stay here for­ev­er, or at least a good many years. I can plant trees and watch them grow. We can replace the grass with pret­ti­er ground cov­ers that don’t require mow­ing, and not wor­ry about what the neigh­bors or poten­tial buy­ers will think.

My sis­ter and her hus­band are always con­cerned about those things. They only live in com­mu­ni­ties with many restric­tive covenants, so they won’t be exposed to “those peo­ple” (we count as “those peo­ple”). They are always think­ing about resale val­ue, so they’ll nev­er do any­thing unique in their homes. They keep up with “impor­tant” trends in dec­o­rat­ing, con­stant­ly updat­ing wall­pa­per or paint or what­ev­er to main­tain resale value.

Screw that!

Our house suits us and will con­tin­ue to be mod­i­fied more and more to be just right for us.

While we were at Pike’s yes­ter­day, Sam put a tra­di­tion­al gar­den­ing hat on my head. He said he thinks there’s some kind of law that says I have to wear one at some point. I was­n’t hap­py. If I’m going to wear a gar­den­ing hat, it will be some­thing more inter­est­ing than a beige one. Maybe one like this?

I had a hard time find­ing gloves that suit me, too. Men’s gloves are most­ly too big for me. The wom­en’s large fit, except that the fin­gers are too short. The fin­gers end about a half-inch before my hand starts. I final­ly bought a pair at Home Depot that was­n’t too egre­gious, but they weren’t real­ly what I want­ed. I like the ones with the rein­forced rub­ber tips for pro­tect­ing fin­ger­nails. I liked the pur­ple ones best. Of course, they don’t have pur­ple in the men’s or uni­sex gloves, for some stu­pid reason.

Maybe I can find a site for queer gar­den­ers with styl­ish gloves and hats?

Pike’s had quite the col­lec­tion of expen­sive items intend­ed to “squir­rel proof” bird­feed­ers. Hmph. I do not believe in the exis­tence of “squir­rel proof” any­thing that is out­side and con­tains any­thing squir­rels want to eat. I’ve seen the dan­ged things eat­ing a com­plete­ly emp­ty cedar bird­feed­er before!

Dur­ing his vis­it with red­cub, Lar­ry men­tioned “water worms.” They’re ter­ra cot­ta worms that change col­or when it’s time to water your plants. I final­ly found some, but the com­pa­ny seems to have gone out of busi­ness. If y’all run across those, please let me know!