random thoughts – Day 2,334 (Wednesday) – holes

New baby spaghetti squash.

Another beautiful day meant another morning working in the yard. Out back, something is still chewing on the basil leaves and I suspect the earwigs. The spaghetti squash plant from my sister produced a couple tiny squashes, but something ate both of them. There is no suspect identified in this crime. There is a new tiny squash but if history holds, it won’t last long.

Out front, holes were prepared to receive plants. A few ferns that had sprung up against the back of the house were transplanted in the ring under the tree out front. Some purple clover things that had escaped Mom’s front flower bed and invaded the lawn were dug up and relocated under the tree. The plan is to keep expanding the circle around the tree with one or two more rings as plants come along.

The tree ring.

On the way back from grocery shopping, there was a stop at WalMart to see if the plants area had been reset. There were racks of fresh new flowers including mums in several sizes and I got a tray of ten cute little mums for $1.44 each. Back at home, the two new flower boxes each received dirt, three holes, and three little mums, and the area under the tree got the rest. Tomorrow I will harvest some of the plentiful dried needles from under the hedges and use them as mulch under the tree. 

Also on the list will be getting ground cover plants for the slope between my yard and Mom’s to reduce some of the mowing, and some dirt and gravel to fill in the area along the concrete slab in the back of the house that has been pummeled by the rain.

Filling holes with plants and dirt felt pretty good, but it didn’t do much to fill the brother shaped hole in my heart on  this, the fifth anniversary of his death. At least the yard will look nice.