Mostly spent outside

That was my free time this weekend.

I did decide to do the trash-off; it's something that is important to me. (And it's good exercise. I walked fourteen blocks twice (up and down my street from the main street in town to the university) and an equivalent number of one-block segments between my street and the next street over on the other side.

There wasn't as much trash this year, I'm happy to report. (And none at all in my own little neighborhood: but I think we are all like-minded here; our response to litter in our yards or the street in front of our house is to groan and go get a trash bag to clean it up). It may be that fewer people are littering? (I hope). Or maybe more people are doing the walk-and-pick-up-trash as a form of exercise (several of the retired ladies I know at church do this in their own neighborhoods).

Also, the head of Solid Waste came up to me and hugged me (one of those side-arm hugs, where they wrap their arm around your back and the opposite shoulder - I think some men do this when they want to hug a woman but don't want anyone watching to misinterpret it as anything but a friendly hug). I was a little surprised by that, but then, we used to serve on a committee (which has since disbanded) together, and I know a couple times he kind of ruefully commented that I was ONE person he could count on to do stuff when I volunteered. Another man from the same committee saw me and commented "You're always here for these things, aren't you, God love you!"

So, in a way, it was nice to reinforce my image of myself as Someone Who Does Not Flake Out On Things.

The other thing is, I like to pick up litter because I think litter is one of those fundamentally, annoyingly unfair things about life: most of the time, the people who wind up with litter in their yards are people who would not litter to begin with. (Over the years, I've had a few older people and one disabled woman thank me for picking up the litter near their yards; I assume it's a case of "I wish I could still do that but I can't"). And I know I'm a busy person and it can really kill an early-morning good mood to walk out to drive to work and find that someone's thrown a couple beer bottles or a bag full of fast-food leavings up into my yard.

I also got to see some of the parts of town I normally only see from a car, and to look at the architecture. There's lots of odd architecture in my town, and some interesting architecture, too. There are a few houses that would probably not be out of place in a small British village, and there are one or two blocks where I almost feel like I'm back up in Rapid River, where my grandmother lived. I suppose it is because the houses are of similar vintage, and because people here tend to be of more modest means and less prone to want to keep up with the Joneses than those of some other towns where I've lived, the same old original yellow or pale green siding are on the houses. (Oh, there are "rich folks" in town, but they all live up on Mockingbird Lane* on the north side of town, in minimansions that look kind of vaguely Provencal. While it would be nice to have enough land to have a considerable sound buffer...I think a place that I'd HAVE to hire "help" to keep up would make me twitch. And I'm probably too quirky to fit in with most of the truly moneyed people here.)

(*No, I do not know if there is a 1313.)

There's also one odd old...not exactly a house, almost a compound (I suppose it's apartments). It looks like it's been added on to without much plan over the years, but the thing that makes me wonder about it, is that there's a very large, heavy-duty looking outdoor chimney with what almost looks like a forge attached to it. Old blacksmith's shop from the early days of town? It seems much more heavily built and "functional" than what you'd expect from someone's 1950s era barbecue. (There are a few curbstones in that neighborhood that still have iron rings set into them - presumably, for tying up your horse.)

There's another cute brick house that I keep hoping I can meet the owners of, because I'd love to know its history - the east facing side of it has two large windows and it looks for all the world like an old-time, small-town shop. I suspect it was, but unless I can talk to someone who knows the history, I'll never know for sure.

***

Then, today, I decided that if I wanted to plant flowers to keep the butterflies around my place after the privet finishes up, this would be a good day to do it. So I ripped all the weeds and grass that had invaded the flowerbeds (and there was a lot of grass; I didn't have flowers in it last summer or fall because of the heat and the drought). I also cut out tons of mulberry and elm that were invading.

Then, I went to Lowe's and dropped a slightly-scary (but budgeted) amount of money on bedding plants. I bought some cosmos, particularly because butterflies will use them. I decided to go with a purple/white/reddish pink theme and try to make it like a cottage garden. I don't know how successful it will be...if I had more money to spend I would have bought more plants and planted them more densely. I also got some angeloma (? I think...zygomorphous flowers, sort of like open snapdragons but smaller) and some dianthus. And a couple of lavender plants. I would have gone with more of the small (cheap) bedding plants but they had very little other than petunias, and my front garden gets too hot and dry for petunias to do well. I did finish off with some dusty miller, which doesn't really produce much in the way of flowers for butterflies, but I still like it.

Maybe later on, if I feel like it needs it, and when they have basil out (they did not, not this early, I guess), I might get some and put it in as spacer plants - and let it flower, rather than picking off the buds to get more leaf growth. Butterflies and even hummingbirds will use basil. (And if they get any white or purple salvias in later, I might add some of those - red is the kind that really attracts pollinators but wouldn't fit with the purple/white theme)

I also got four small Arkansas Traveler tomatoes. Hopefully they're not too small to grow well before it gets too hot...

So I feel like I got something done, something I was wondering when I'd have time to do it. It's hard these days to garden in the afternoons as I have so many late afternoon or evening commitments, and it's hard to come home, get piano practice in, garden, and then have time to wash up and change (and because of my allergies, I HAVE to wash my hair after being outside for any length of time).

I just hope we don't get another summer like last year, where we wind up with watering restrictions and everything dying from the heat. Most of the stuff I bought is fairly drought tolerant, but not for eight weeks without rain.