Green thumb

Most of you that know me, know that I am a true girly-girl...one that doesn't like to sweat or get dirty when I don't have to. Well, last night you would have been surprised to see me. I was filthy--AND sweaty. All for the sake of my newly planted flowers.

Mike thought that some impatients would look really pretty around some of the bases of the trees in our backyard, so I went with Mom and bought all that Wal-Mart had left (which didn't seem like much) last Saturday. She and I planted enough to go around one tree base and ran out of top soil. I was completely unbalanced--waaaay to many flowers....waaaay under the amount of top soil I needed. So we took them inside and left them in my living room floor until yesterday...my first opportunity to buy more top soil.

I asked Mike to put the bricks around the bases of the trees that he wanted flowers under, and he came up with a lovely idea to connect two trees, that were about 5 feet apart, with the flowers. While he brought bricks around from the side of the house, I got on my knees and started pulling grass and weeds. Oh the critters that I stumbled upon. At one point, I saw something scurry through the dirt and into a hole in the tree. I mumbled to myself that I better not see that thing again or I might have to go inside. After about thirty minutes and only a few feet of weeds/grass removed I was sweating like a pig! (Do pigs sweat?) My knees were dirty and were aching. "Oh for the joy of the final product," I kept saying to myself. I chuckled when Mike mentioned that he didn't know if it was worth all this work. It WAS his idea.

An hour and a half, 8 bags of top soil, and 75 plants later, I finished the bases of the two trees. Today my body aches, but my yard is coming along. Maybe by the end of the weekend I will have finished planting those stinkin' impatients. I feel like I haven't even made a dent in the amount I bought...and I'm already out of soil again.

When they finally blossom, the work will have been worth it. Mike says I may have a green thumb afterall.