I Try

I don't know why, but I keep trying, and I'm not the only one.  My pitiful little lettuce bed has one again been decimated.  For the third time, the blankety-blank ground squirrels have come just as the lettuce is ready to pick, and they pick it.  Silly me.  Those pesky little guys have also started kicking dirt out of the flower pots around the deck.  It's possible they are doing some planting of their own (acorns?) or, worse, using the pots as latrines.  Either way, they're making a mess.  I'm afraid I might jinx the situation, but so far they've left my Talisman rose bush alone this year.

Taking advantage of an unexpected spurt of ambition (where did that come from?), I got a lot of housework done yesterday, as well as pulling a nice patch of weeds from the peony bed.  I've learned not to stay at that job to the point of pain, so pull a bit every time I go out the front door.  I'm a bit hampered by my constant companion, Bess, who comes to lie in the freshly turned earth right in front of me.  Maybe she's looking out for my best interests and/or my back.  The chickens love this time of year because, if they're the right kind of weeds (nontoxic), I throw armloads over into the chicken pen and make the little girls happy, happy, happy.  Since I can't let them free-range anymore, it's the next best thing.  I try.

After a pretty productive day (or destructive, depending on if you're a ground squirrel or a weed), sundown was a welcome sight.

It was a good day.