Catching Up

Once I am caught up, I will spend quiet afternoons puttering around the yard with a pair of bypass pruners and a bucket of newly-pulled baby weeds, just doing a little maintenance here or there.

In reality, weeding in my yard is an athletic event, requiring shovels, loppers, and the occasional saw, and producing heaping piles of brushy trash or four-foot-tall, flowering weeds.

 
Once I am caught up, I will compost all of my yard waste in an efficient three-bin system.

In reality, I'm thankful that the City of Austin will take, and compost, the bushels of Bermuda grass, bindweed, and other invasive weeds that my yard produces.

 
Once I am caught up, I will plant, and thin, and trim, and harvest, continually, always on schedule.

In reality, I plant all at once, procrastinate thinning, and harvest in an equal panic, right before everything goes to seed.

Yesterday was one of those catch-up days.  I hurried around the yard like a madwoman, mowing, weeding, deadheading, and watering, all in an attempt to catch up with the growth that was stimulated by last week's rains.  I know that catching up in the garden is just a fairy tale, less likely to happen than turning one of my garden toads into a prince by kissing him, but I still rush after that ideal.  I like the neatness of the freshly-mowed lawn.  I like being able to walk into the backyard, to water the baby fall greens, without creating a mental to-do list.  I guess that, most of all, I like the feeling of being in charge of my yard.  With the lawn mowed, and the weeds pulled, and the plants watered, I can putter around the yard, trying to take a picture of Benji with her head turned my direction.