Spring and Garden Fever

About a month ago I was thrilled to see the garlic I forced myself to plant last fall on a miserabley cold day, showing signs of life!

This motivated me to spend several hours tidying up my garden, and planting a huge amount of peas, lettuce, spinich, and radishes....

Keeping track of how much, when and where.Unfortunately I was a little to eager. This planting was before some very nasty weather, including a day where it hailed heavily three different times, which made our lovely soil compacted to the consistencey of concrete. I am guessing that this is why we have had almost NO sprouts. That, and the fact that the soil was the temp of my freezer, despite the warm when we planted.

I guess we will be planting it all again. :( - Oh, except the radishes (which I don't even like and only planted for Andrew) which seem to have come up strong and happy. Go figure!

However last week while the temps were in the 70's, I tackled the long overdue Garden Shed!! I usually clean it out every spring and fall, - but last fall I hadn't gotten to it, - nor a really good cleaning last spring, so it was really really needing it. - You couldn't even walk inside!! These pictures were after we had already been working on it for a while so you can just imagine!! :)

One of the biggest problems was that just one short year ago, Andrew didn't have his shop built, and this was the only non-house-garage storage he had for extra building matteriels, random scraps of metal, and all sorts of potentially useful things. Also, - last year we got another mower after our old one had been in for 3 months. - It ended up being there for 8months. Unreal. The fix actually wasn't that expensive, the guy just never got around to it....grrrrrr.   So it seemed to make more sense to buy a new one, rather than pay someone to mow for several hours 2x a week....

Several corroded shelves from some fertalizers etc. gone bad. 8 Years after we were given them for free, I convinced Andrew since we hadn't used them, and they were going bad, we should get rid of them. Huge relief to have them GONE! I am glad Andrew gave Justice his own drill gun for Christmas, - which I borrowed to unscrew these shelves and dump them!

In THIS corner where a stack of shingles, the gross remains of a redwinged blackbird (don't know why, we don't have a cat) and a HUGE freaken rat's nest was..... (maybe it ate the bird?ewww) I uncovered the symbols of love placed in the concrete when we built the shed... A&R in a heart, 2004.

Ahhh, - romance.  :)

So in review. - Dragged almost all extra building supplies/ metal scrap/shingles/ etc...... etc........ etc...... (think Yule Brenner as the king!:)   Into driveway in front of shed, - where when husband came home from work, took pity (actually, - they blocked his path to park his truck in the shop, happy coincidance:)  and helped me put them away, - drag 4 huge trash cans full of junk to the dumpster, I put the unused sand turtle and slide up stairs in the newly  cleaned out loft, - with all the tomatoe cages. - Cleaned out 3 dead and decaying birds, one dead rabbit, (?) several feet of thick dirt, dead grass and more junk, arranged tools in cubbies on walls, and hung up, used empty chest for Justice's outside trucks, used blue tote for all other toys, and REdiscovered my garden shed!

Unfortunately, BOTH mowers had flats, so I couldn't move them to more convienent new spots, but I think you can see the improvement!!! I have had plans for a while to paint it, and make it much cuter... which I still plan to do.... just haven't gotten to it yet!
I want to paint it a mix of extras in the 'whitish, grayish' family, and bright green as an accent. - It's gonna be fun. - But for now, - I am just glad I can walk into my shed and grab a shovel, or gloves, or whatever. -

Felicity was less than thrilled by the end of the day. - And lest you think I am superwoman, yes, - this took all. day.  - With her in watching in the morning, - during her morning nap, - after lunch, - during her second nap... by this time in the afternoon she was sick of the stroller, and fussing. I honestly think she'd have been much happier if she could have just been mucking allong with us in the grime! Justice however was a trooper, and was fantastic help!  Now that my shed is clean, - just makes me want to get out and garden some more... now if the ground will just dry out and warm up!