Can you dig it?

I’ve really been working hard out in the yards this week. Whew. I actually think I’m ahead of a lot of my neighbors. I’ve seen a few people raking, especially those with south-facing property whose bulbs were starting to come up, and commercial companies out here and there. But one of my neighbors still has a big fallen tree branch in the middle of his front yard. Of course, one week ago today, there was still a bit of snow on the ground.

My experience has been that when spring gets a late start, everything seems to accelerate a bit to catch up, so I didn’t want to wait. On top of that, I did huge amounts of work last spring (and now I wish I’d taken “before” photos, because you simply wouldn’t recognize the place. But I was too embarrassed, especially by the state of the now-greenhouse-to-be. I look at it now and I can’t believe it, myself). I then goofed off for six weeks, to the detriment of the garden, got going again at the end of July and continued doing huge amounts of work right up until December, when it finally was just plain too cold. I’ve been on my tip-toes waiting until I could pick up where I left off.

On Monday and Tuesday, I raked all the front yard and part of the back yard and cut some saplings, brush and branches down toward the street. I pulled Tarpzilla off the garden patch in front, raked off the garden patch, spread Tarpzilla (he’s about 20 by 30 feet, this is one honking tarp) out on the driveway, swept him off, folded him up and put him in the greenhouse.

I spent a whole afternoon digging these horrendous fern root clumps one by one out of the patch in the east side front of the house with a mattock. These things are each about the size of a small tire and weigh more than that. I’ve wanted to dig them out for years and it was just too daunting a job. With great malicious glee I’ve used them to fill in the deep ruts in my dirt driveway so I can run over them with my car every time I go out (ha). When they were finally all out, I raked the bare dirt and put down grass seed. The house faces north and and it’s too shady to plant anything useful there. Several years ago, I cut down all the overgrown ugly bushes on the west front of the house and seeded the large bare spot left behind, and it’s all grass now. I wanted to get the grass seed in just before it rained, and I made it!

In 2009, when I had the tarps down in the front yard to kill the grass and create the space for the vegetable patch, I also had some tarps down on a sunny spot in the back yard for the same objective. But I never got around to cultivating that patch last summer. I decided I’d do that this year, because I want to try some early crops. Wednesday it poured rain, and today it was beautiful. I went out this afternoon and hand-dug a vegetable patch in the back yard with the mattock. I love my mattock. 🙂 My only regret about this spot is that there were a lot of naturalized crocuses there. But since they’re all flowering (and therefore highly visible), I transplanted them all to another location. I made a patch about 8 feet square, and I put in peas and spinach. Then I did more raking, and started working on clearing back the ground ivy that’s taking over the back yard. I cleared an entire flower bed that has two kinds of day lilies, narcissus and black raspberries, and was totally choked with ground ivy.

It’s only April 15, and I’ve already planted tomatoes, bell peppers, Brussels sprouts (found the seeds!), basil and dill (freebie seeds from the Triscuit box) indoors, and sugar snap peas and spinach outside! (Now watch. I’m going to look out some nice day and see the woodchuck eating the peas and spinach–if not a deer!)

When I haven’t been gardening, I’ve been working on BLUM’s next four releases. I’m querying reviewers and offering ARCs of Applewood, and completing the ebook editions and print book cover templates for that. I’ve sent off Anne Fraser’s two collections to an experienced editor for a read-through. When they come back, I’ll do the layout and get them ready to send out in galleys. I’m finishing the final edits for Marco (reading every word of it aloud, which is rather entertaining) and I’ll be sending the author the galley proof in just another couple of days. Meanwhile, I’m continuing to read books and watch documentaries as part of the research for All the Shadows of the Rainbow, and the next step is a detailed plot outline. I’ve never written a novel that way before, but this one is tied so closely into real-life events, I really need a tight timeline.

I’ve been buying ebooks for my research, both Kindle books and through Google, which had a title that wasn’t available for Kindle. I’ve read free ebooks on Pig (my netbook) before, but now I’ve finally progressed to actually buying them. It’s a different experience reading non-fiction books on Pig, because he’s on the wireless network. So, whenever I want to check a reference or look something up in the middle of reading, I just click over to a browser window and do it. On the other hand, I can’t put sticky notes into the ebooks when I come across something important.

I once again have blue hair. It needs several applications to build up a depth of color before I can really decide if I like it, but it’s okay so far. It must really be spring! 🙂 My car needs a new inspection sticker this month, and I need not to forget to take it in.

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