I was up early and out just after breakfast to work before the rain that is expected this afternoon. I hauled the weed whacker up to the Circle Garden at the barn. I now understand why sysrinchium is called blue-eyed grass – tiny blue flowers are just beginning to bloom. I trimmed around the rock wall and weeded in and around all the plants. To finish, I walked the perimeter with my vinegar weed killer.
I came back down weed whacking as I went – the bottom of the barn stairs, the bays under the barn, around the flagpole and the side door. I dug out the grass around Spots’s pen so that a machete was not needed to deliver bread and other treats. I weed whacked whatever remained and continued to the yard beside the driveway. I managed to avoid sending the weed whacker, and myself, down the hillside.
One shrub rockrose in the front border garden has its first blooms. The archives show that the Saint Francis rockrose was in full bloom on Holy Saturday last year, the third week of April. Clipping around the buds when I prune for Spots’s breakfast seems to work.
One of the many tasks that annoy me enough that I actually address it is the main irrigation line on the south end of the front border garden. Apparently, it was buried beneath the weed block when it was laid down. I cut the line free from the weed block, laid it on the open ground, and replaced the weed block and covering mulch. The exercise achieved its purpose, uncovering lost feeders and bubblers and exposing a hole in the line that I plugged just before the rain started.
A long soaking rain the rest of the afternoon, with two more days to follow.
A Year at the Snake 