I put the outdoor shower together last evening. It’s working fine although it needs one or two joints to be wrenched tighter – hard for me with carpal tunnel.
I bought a cool solar frog and a lantern. That should complete the garden features. I want to finish the front today and maybe do some painting.

Spent about 3 hours mowing and weeding at Edgewater yesterday. Gave the rock garden a good soak. It looks great – miraculous, since it’s received so little care this year. Destroyed several slugs.

Planted purple fountain grass in front of the fence at Dixon a couple of days ago, did more weeding and dead-heading today.

Have been storing up food and beer for the cookout this Sunday; the downstairs frig is full.

Transplanted James’ strawberries to the vegetable garden, and they seem to be okay this morning. Miracle Gro’d the annuals.

Made a decorative pseudo-fence to partially hide the mulch pile.

Candy put in hibiscus yesterday next to her pool; I hope they take.

Finished the driveway and did some weeding and dead-heading at the front entrance to Winslow Farms, pruned the big hydrangea, washed the truck, watered and did a transfer station run. Otherwise, I’ve been eating junk food and relaxing today.

Have been working in the yard off and on for the last 8 hours.
There was so much weeding to be done, and I’ll bet when I start again tomorrow, I’ll find even more.
I’ve managed to keep the gardens alive and even reasonably healthy, and I’ve been pretty good about pruning, but not weeding.

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Dug up the purple butterfly bush today and was horrified to see that it has almost no roots; no wonder it’s done so poorly.
I bought a new, larger one at Mahoney’s. Will try to get it to acclimate better than the old one.
Had a nice chat with Richie, too. He has a great attitude towards long-term customers, considers us “friends”.
Paid a visit to Country Garden in Hyannis; what a place.

Picked and ate the first tomato today. Got fired. Glad to never have to go back to the “Black Hole of Calcutta”.

We’ve finished the hottest month of the year; August has been kind so far, a break from July’s killing heat and humidity.
The first tomato is almost ripe, and there are 3 pumpkin seedlings. I moved their EarthBox to the yard yesterday.
Put Miracle Gro on the vegetable garden as well as the annual flowers and the recent transplants. Gave the little garden by the right fence a good watering.
Leaving shortly to pick up Peter’s lawn mower.

Gave them Rose Pride today, a couple had some bad leaves.

Tiny seedling in the Earthbox where I planted pumpkin seeds only four days ago.

I finished the ramps today. They work great; I used them to get Peter’s lawnmower on the truck – easy.
Each ramp will take up to 700 pounds, although I wouldn’t risk it with that wood.
I think I bought the ramps in January, around the same time that I brought home the flooring from Avon.
It’s taken that long to “psych” myself to get the 2x8s and actually mount the ramp tops. It was difficult – I estimate that each plank weighs around 50 pounds – and I had to redrill one of the holes to line up the top correctly. I had to improvise on drilling since I didn’t have a large enough bit.
It all worked out, though, and I’m very happy.
The hibiscus are spectacular this morning. We’ve had heavy wind since yesterday, but the poor things still are holding their own.
Bad news from Social Security, they want their money back for this year, or maybe not, depending on my actual earnings for 2010.