12 April 2014

Fifth mark: care of creation

It was a day full of determination today. All the rain of the last few days had cleared away, leaving everything beautifully fresh. I woke up keen to get the washing out; in the end it didn't go out until nearly lunchtime, because we decided to attack some of the garden. Now don't all die of shock.... 

We've got this awesome tree trimming tool that speeds up the shrub haircuts enormously, and while hubby was playing with the power tool, daughter and I were moving all of the cut-offs out the back (hence why the washing didn't go out: we would have dragged all the dirty bush offcuts through the clean washing to get to the compost heap!). We also got quite a bit of weeding done in the front garden along the front of the house. 

Part of my keenness to get the garden under control is that I want to plant some flowers. Being autumn, it's the right time to put bulbs in for next spring, and hubby wants to plant some herbs. So as an incentive to sorting out some of the back garden bits along the back of the house and near the washing line, we wandered off to Bunnings today and got some plant seeds: a whole lot of different herbs for mass planting to keep hubby's cooking habits supplied, and two packs of pansy seeds for me - I like pansies and I especially like that they self-seed once they are established! Bulbs will be coming once I've got somewhere cleared with lots of sun to put them. 

Cutting back the ponga tree today kept making me think about Palm Sunday tomorrow, wishing we could take those huge fern fronds down to the church! They are so beautiful. The cool thing is that it doesn't seem to matter how serious a haircut you give a ponga, it will regenerate: in fact, I've seen old dry ponga fencing start growing fronds again. Pretty cool: a fence of ferns. 

And I've come up with a new way to keep up some momentum in the garden (those of you who are regular readers here know that I am not a gardener by any understanding of that term!): if we do it by the clock, setting an alarm for a short fixed time and then cleaning up we won't get so tired we get cranky and cross with it. And who knows? Maybe the sight of pansies I planted coming up and making it pretty will make me want to do some more!

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