Ye olde raking injury

Ah, spring.

It's the time of year when my back muscles go "oh yeah, raking! I totally forgot about that!"

It's the time of year where the cats plot out new places to poop in my garden. Toxomoplasmosis, here we come. Guess I should be wearing gloves...

The season where I have no idea what to wear. I'm underdressed in the morning, and overdressed by lunchtime. (sigh). My life is so difficult.

I have raked and raked. Then I raked some more. And a friend raked too, the entire yard, but then I had to rake again. And I will be raking tonight, and probably raking tomorrow night as well. The problem? We haven't mowed the lawn since approximately July 22, 2005. We don't have grass, we have hay. I could bale it up and feed a horse for a week. In fact, we have horses around, perhaps I could rent one for a few days to avoid raking. If I could get a set of four horse-sized aerator sandals, we'd be all set.

But as it is, I have the sandals, and I have been raking like a mad fool to try and get grass to grow where once there was only hay. This weekend, I will be spreading seeds as well, in the rain because I don't want to tax our well too heavily, and because I am lazy that way and actually enjoy the smell of wet dirt and grass.

I haven't started photographing the garden yet, but I'm going to have to take some 'before' shots this week because I predictably have a lot of work to do. On the horizon this year? Behold the following list:

1. Terrace the other side of my front hill, adding to the work I did last year (MAY).
2. Build up and add to my shade foundation garden (MAY).
3. Fill a hole in our yard with dirt and plant grass seed on it, so that we can string up our badminton/volleyball net (APRIL/MAY).
4. Get some flagstones for in front of the shed and around the firepit (MAY/JUNE).
5. Build (or at least plan) a basic platform for a treehouse. If built this summer, we could get a mosquito net and sleep in it on hot nights. How romantic is that?
6. Plant and maintain a cohesive bunch of containers on the deck, possibly containing herbs and/or veggies, but definitely colourful annuals and vines (MAY).
7. Get the lawn into working order, try to eradicate the creeping jenny - organically of course (ONGOING).
8. Make some kind of progress on the border garden (ONGOING).
9. Re-do the compost bin. Possibly buy one of those black ones (JULY).
10. Maintain a healthy veggie garden all the way through the season.

I think this list is very doable. That's in addition to replacing the roof over our kitchen (over the shade garden, grrr) ourselves, finishing the back room, staining our staircase, and renovating the bathroom all before July. Hey, it's gotta rain sometime!

I've said this before in this space, but there's nothing better than coming home from work, grabbing a cold beer or a glass of wine, and wandering the garden, puttering here and there, coddling the plants. That season has already begun.