After sifting in loam from compost and the original soil minus clumps and pebbles and roots, I still hadn't filled in the vegetable frame. After my swim I bought peat moss and mushroom compost, and today I will add it in, even though today is, gasp, overcast.
We read more about buffalo grass and zoysia and really how much water that much square footage of bluegrass would require and settled on tall fescue. I am still thinking of buffalo grass for under the cherry tree: unlike fescue it grows from roots so can repair itself; and under the cherry tree doesn't have as much traffic as the lawn area, which must withstand outdoor furniture, clothesline, and other traffic; and that is still the best place to grow squash because the vines can creep where they want without crowding either other vegetables or foot traffic.
Yesterday I swapped storms for screens, worked on the back yard for a few hours, made myself a smoothie and drank it on the porch with D.H. Lawrence, and then went for my swim. If I hadn't needed the dirt I would have gone on my bike. I love spring. The weather eked out about a fortnight of winter at the end of March, so I am even glad to see it.
Cybex arc trainer, 10' @ 100% incline and 51% resistance, then
Precor elliptical, 20' @ 100% incline and 60% resistance.
Weights: squats, 3x12 @80; chest press, 3x12 @25; fly, 3x12 @15; lats, 3x12 @60. Abdominal leg lifts, 2x5.
Swim (matron breast stroke, because I was wearing contacts), .5K.
I repotted my new houseplant, some sort of variegated foliage thing. Otherwise, I emptied the other vegetable frame and started filling it in again, mixing it with peat moss, mushroom compost, and cattle manure. (The bag said "steer manure." Is the manure from castrated bulls very different than that from cows?)
Last year, when the soil for the new frame arrived, I thought it was different than the first frame's content. And it is. Either that, or its different orientation (perpindicular to the other) means so much less sun that its clay retains more moisture longer. Sieving the soil was much more difficult: either more clayey, or just wetter, thus much more clumpy, with some clumps hard as rocks. Those I threw back. Peat moss holds moisture too, but should make the soil flufflier overall. So I didn't sieve it all but raked what could be raked back into the frame, and I will break down the clumps and cemented sand later.
After getting up at the perfectly reasonable weekend hour of 8:30, resetting the clocks, having breakfast, and talking to Nisou for an hour, it was nearly noon by the time we left the house. After the gym and another Home Depot run (it must be spring: two visits on a two-day weekend), we returned nearly at 3. Three and a half hours of work in the garden, until dinner: a short day. This is not my favorite day of the year.
Nisou shrieked when I said I was going to Amsterdam, but she, more sensible than I, has a much more realistic view of the practical distance and expense of LeMans to Amsterdam with two little ones. I didn't expect her to come, of course: that's why I hadn't mentioned it. But I told her I would wave as I passed overhead. Though I expect the flight is routed over the British Isles rather than over France.
Siblet has begun to cruise, and she is suddently much happier. Nisou attributes the winter's crying to frustration at wanting but not quite being able to travel yet. Emlet has made up cousins for herself every day since returning from Connecticut where she has actual and adoptive cousins. She sang me her favorite song of the past few months, "M. Carnival." Last weekend they blew eggs and made brioche and hot cross buns from the eggs, and painted the eggs, and hunted them in the garden. Also Emlet told me how I should come and help her play with her new duck magnet. Okay.
Otherwise Nisou and I talked gardening. Lasagne mulch, and how much we wish we had bought ourselves rotating compost bins rather than ones that need pitchforking, and Nisou's plans for the weedbed, as she calls it, at the foot of her garden, and trellises for raspberries. And where I am going to put strawberries.