arting and sweating

Saturday morning I went out to find the dish of the birdbath on the ground again. I may just leave it there for now and filling it with water for whatever creature that keeps pulling it down in it’s effort to get water.

I finally got out and did some serious work in the yard. Beside moving the sprinkler around every 30 minutes (we need rain desperately) I started on the far back flower bed which I have basically ignored since spring and the poppies went to seed. Haven’t pulled a weed or watered it except for the two clumps of crinum lilies and the dirt is dry dry dry. The first thing I tackled was digging up the dead stump of the confederate rose on the end that didn’t come back this spring. There is something that attacks my confederate rose bushes. A new one will grow fine for the first few years and then one year a branch will start growing deformed and every year after more and more will be deformed until it doesn’t bloom and dies. I have no idea what is happening, everyone I’ve showed the deformed leaves to have no answers. I’ve planted them in different parts of the yard thinking maybe it’s something in the dirt but if it is it’s not just one spot. 

Before, the dead stump/root ball is hidden under the desiccated crabgrass (that’s how dry it is) on the left.

After an hour or so I got out about two thirds and was so hot and sweaty I had to go in and cool off.

Went out again once that area was in the shade and another hour later the rest of the stump/root ball is out and I’ve cleared about half of the weeds. 

The plan is to dig up the clump of pink crinum lilies, which did not bloom this year, there in the middle and put them on the end where the confederate rose was.

I didn’t work back there on Sunday, it was in full sun when I went out so I opted to work in the shade. Years ago I built two small flower beds at right angles to the oak tree by the driveway and planted six azaleas, three in each. Only one of the azaleas lived so I divided the red crinum lilies and replaced the dead azaleas with small clumps. Making those flower beds turned out not to be a great idea because I think they prevented water from draining from the side yard so I decided to take them out and spread the dirt to the low spot. I’ll leave the azalea and make it a small bed with the fringe flower tree next to it but dig up the crinum lilies which aren’t doing well there anyway. So Sunday I started on the arm from the oak to the preexisting bed of ferns at the base of the enormous white crepe myrtle pulling up the landscape blocks and stacking them in the barn. We finally got a little shower later, less than an inch but grateful for anything, and when I went out after to go feed the cats I was surprised to see this small arc of a rainbow since the sky overhead was mostly clear.

Yesterday I got out there, pulled up the rest of the blocks, dug up the crinum (spell check keeps wanting to change this to cranium) lilies

and used the shovel and hoe to spread out the dirt. Need to work on that some more but was hot and sweaty and came in.

I’m working on another card but the mad rush to sit down and get it done is over. Now it’s a few minutes here, a few minutes there, less invested, though walking the dog after yoga yesterday I broke a few willow leaf clusters off the tree at the end of the street and brought them home so maybe I’m not quite done. I’ve already prepared to be done, have transferred two drawings, one for a watercolor painting and one in my sketchbook for a colored pencil drawing. And I’m thinking more and more about a more ambitious watercolor painting. It’s a piece I sketched to do in the pate de verre cast glass but never got to it (that's supposed to be cotton at the bottom).