Spinning and gardening, as per usual. We got our house back to ourselves around noon yesterday. I hear Mr. Ink’s mom is safely settling in her new home. I think it’ll be a good change for her. The first thing we did once company was gone was gather up all the rotting wood and put it in the truck. This included time with the chainsaw attachment on the weed trimmer, as a lot of those wooden edgers wouldn’t fit in the truck. Then we mowed, and headed off for a trip to the dump. Directly after that, we went to the place where we get our rocks, and got some rocks for a new project.

This is the area in which we are having erosion problems. One of the areas, that is. Our neighbor’s property sits higher than ours, and when it rains, that rain just pours into our yard, and one good rain displaces the dirt from the garden onto our lawn. It’s HIGHLY irritating. There’s another issue as well. The neighbor has a long line of railroad ties behind that fence which hold a bed of lilies. But, there’s a gap between the fence and the ties that no one takes care of. So, it’s just an area for weeds which grow rampant, and through our fence. We are also hoping that this rock edging along the fence will help that little problem. The section of grass up there you see will eventually become garden space, so there’ll be the line of rocks across the back, and then the edgers we’ve slowly been adding in front. Mr. Ink had to take out more plants in that garden, the former rudbeckia garden! The sedum is now almost gone. Mr. Ink replanted a small section of it, but I told him I wasn’t the least bit attached to it anyhow. I’d just left it in to help with the erosion issue.

We then worked on a different garden section. Remember this mess we made when trying to remove the spiderwort?

Now it looks like this:

It’ll get another layer of rocks for the wall, and then we’ll edge up to the patio. But we are out of rocks again! I am so extremely fond of these sweet little walls that are going in. And, while Mr. Ink works to the point of extreme back pain on them, he spends the rest of the evening muttering “Such and improvement. SUCH an improvement!”

Last night he decided he’d better do some stretches for his back before bed, so I told him I’d stay up with him, and knit while he did that. All of a sudden, I heard what sounded like sleeping. I look over and thought “He can’t POSSIBLY have fallen asleep while stretching?!” But, it was true, he had. I decided to just wait it out, I continued knitting, and then when he woke up, just burst out laughing. That man works SO HARD around the yard. I am extremely grateful that I have someone in my life who participates in this at the level I do or beyond, meanwhile never acting like he’s been nagged into doing so.

In spinning! I did pull out a new batt. It’s a fat cat knits batt, from my personal spinning subscription. It has a ton of color, this picture is the inside and outside of the batt.

It’s also got great chunky stuff in there, and it sort of reminds me of Loop!’s Three Ring Circus clouds. I have a set of those as well, and I am thinking I’ll ply the two together. Here’s what it is looking like on the bobbin:

Pretty slick! I am enjoying it.

Despite the constant state of digging, and rearranging, the garden continues on. Here’s my latest photo of caladium. This set with smaller leaves, but more leaves. Just as charming, in my opinion!

And then, I’ve got glads in all sorts of colors now:

Naturally, just as much as I’ve got beauty, I’ve got pests. The japanese beetles are working hard to overtake my rose again, so that needs tending, and most of my in the ground petunias are being eaten by some sort of caterpillar. I found one that had chewed straight through a rosebud too! So, I’ll need to get out there in a bit and figure out what to do about that. As of right now, I’ve just been hand picking the pests, but this morning it’s looking like larger measures are now needed. Who knew that tending a large yard so carefully could also bring so much joy?