Fresh when it gets here from
Julie Barrett
Monday, March 5, 2012
I spent today cleaning up the patio. Not only did I bring the plants out of their overwinter warmth in the garage, but I bought a few more plants at the big box home improvement store to make the patio look a little less forlorn. Not every plant survived the winter, and this year I put fewer plants than ever in the garage, thanks to our searing summer of last year.
The patio is always a mess in early spring, but I only managed to mostly fill one bag with leaves as opposed to two or three. I guess that's partly due to the drought. We're still in Stage 2 watering restrictions, and I don't see any change from that even though we had a fairly wet winter.
I cleaned the patio, potted and repotted a bunch of plants, installed a new heat shield on the grill, plus did a serious cleaning on said grill. And yes, Paul and I grilled some yummy chicken sausages and ate our dinner out on the patio. It was nice.
Why the cleaning and planting frenzy? Well, it's spring. And now I've probably just guaranteed a hard freeze in the near future.
I also wanted to move around after yesterday's walking. Paul and I decided to go visit Trader's Village, a giant flea market in Grand Prairie. Used to be we could find some cool stuff there: a few antiques and the like. These days it's mostly tables piled high with socks and undergarments selling 5/$10.
Except the coffee guy was still there, and he's branched out into tea. We picked up some of both, and that was our sole expenditure for the day. The place was packed to the gills, and even when we left at 3:00 there were still lines of cars waiting to get in. I plastered on the sunscreen and wore a hat with a large brim, and generally survived. We were both pretty worn out from the walking, though, which was why I decided to not sit on my tail all day long.
NOW I ache and am more than ready to call it a night.