Oops

Guess October is gone. So much for yard clean up month.

Too warm weather combined with feeling absolutely wretched for the last several weeks have seriously stymied my yardening endeavors. There's been some rain in the last few weeks - yay! Except now my big brown yard is turning green with things that I don't want growing. The mint is back, not at all frustrated by the goats. The oxalis is taking over huge chunks of the yard. I actually don't mind the oxalis - it looks clovery and puts up pretty yellow flowers. But the city has cited us a couple times for having out of control oxalis in our front yard and along our parking strip. Really? Have they ever tried to get rid of it? Its impossible. And besides, its pretty. Sigh.

Anyway, since the ground is slightly damp from Saturday's rain, and since our parking strip is turning alarmingly green already, and, um, since I hid in my house and listened to the street cleaning guy take a shovel to the green stuff growing in the street along side our house (that's not our responsibility, right? If the street is in bad enough repair that green stuff can grow on the asphalt, surely that's the city's problem. Right?), I decided to take a stab at the parking strip this morning. I have long had plans for this evil strip, involving creeping thyme on the street side, and lavender and rosemary on the fence side. But today, I was just going to focus on getting rid of the green stuff coming up.

Armed with my handy new toy, the Garden Weasel , I set out with very great intentions. And discovered that my suspicions that yardening and morning sickness are not remotely compatible were completely correct. I knew this, but still I tried. With lots of little breaks and frequent reminders to myself not to pass out and/or throw up, I actually cleared about a quarter of the street side of the parking strip down to dirt - about 30 feet. Have I mentioned that the parking strip is half a block long? I also had the nice gentleman across the street doing a little happy dance as he described how excited he is to have recently gotten into growing things and had my local postal worker suggest just paving it over. Tempting.

Anyway, I guess I'll go out and try again tomorrow. I might run to the nursery this afternoon and pick up a few plugs of thyme - I cleared up enough to plant four or five plants, I think. Which when you think about it, is pretty cool.