The Incompetent Gardener is pushing spring. Come on, y'all know you do it
too. Well maybe not my sister in law who is perfect in everything she
does. She has a Master Gardener certificate from Purdue University Extension
to prove it!
I am not sure that I can separate the Pushing Spring topic from the
Incompetent Gardener topic this year. We'll see how it goes. The Pushing
Spring topic only lasts a short time while the Incompetent Gardener lingers
on.
March 1, 2009. It is spring!!! Almost!!! We were sad to
discover our pond fish did not survive our brutal cold winter this year. We
think they bought it with the foot of snow and someone forgot to shovel a
space for light or chop a hole for air. It was so cold here for so
long that the hole probably would have frozen over every night. THAT's
how cold it was!
We scooped out dead grass carp and my precious Koi were as long as my
arm! Tossed them on the sides of the pond and some nightly creatures
ate every bit. Only a few fishy scales left scattered about to remind
us of our incompetent pond management. This was our third winter up
here on Chickadee Hill and we were totally unprepared for the death of our
special pets.
Last year a young neighbor boy showed up at my back door with his fishing
pole and tackle in hand. "Ma'am, you got some great big ole fish in your
pond and I would be happy to clear them out for you". I damn
near fainted dead away. It was difficult to explain to a ten year that
the fish were hand fed pets. I told him it wouldn't be fair as the
fish recognized humans and came up to be fed bread crumbs and cat food.
I caught him down there a couple of times when he thought I wasn't looking.
Finally had to call his parents.
This year I get to explore my incompetence on a budget. What that
basically means is that while there is no extra money for exotic and
peculiar plants, there is plenty of money for re-stocking the ponds.
My basic incompetence includes getting hornswaggled in the budget area.
I seethed and pouted over that for days. Retribution will happen and
it won't be a pretty sight.
Throughout the month of March we have found many things to do in the
garden and save money. We like being outside in spring and this year
the winter was particularly tough and we were just bursting to get outside
on that first magical day over 40 degrees.
Power tools just aren't my thing. We have them all and I use them not.
Well, I use them but not in the way you might think. This past weekend
I was exploring passive aggressive retribution on the honey (on accounta the
budget and pond fish mentioned above). So after the Saturday morning
..um ... ritual, I asked if we had a chain saw on a stick. I didn't
ask for but received a long blow-hard lecture about using a chain saw.
After the interminable lecture, I tried exactly three times to pull the
starter rope.
After I kicked the chain saw on the stick, I started to stomp off when
the honey stepped in and started it up for me. I angrily pointed to
everything I wanted cut down and the job was done in little more than half a
day.
While it is still early in the year, we'll go forward to 'pushing
spring'. Click HERE
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