I headed off to Okoboji for the weekend on Friday directly after work. Had a lovely drive out there, arrived in reasonable time to hang out, spin, and chat, and then begin our adventures on Saturday morning.

The entire weekend was most pleasant! I didn’t get nearly as much spinning done as I’d anticipated for two reasons. The first being that we stayed occupied quite a bit. The second reason was this:

This is my friend’s chihuahua. She had a really rough puppy mill start to her life, and as a result is sometimes quite fearful, making her aggressive. I was really only expecting her to tolerate me. But…she ended up adoring me, and wanted to spend large amounts of time on my lap, making it tough to spin. She was fun and sweet and I am so glad she so easily warmed up to me.

On Saturday evening, I decided enough with attempting to spin while having a dog on my lap, and I pulled out my knitting instead. She would then hop up on my chair, put her nose under my knitting, and flop it onto the floor so she could have my lap. After a couple episodes of this, I decided to try something new. I wrapped my scarf in progress around her, on a whim, intending to take a funny photo. What happened instead? She immediately curled up in a ball with my knitting around her, and fell fast asleep.

On Saturday we stopped at some local shops. I picked up a few things for the garden and a new spindle bowl. I’ll grab photos of them tonight. While at the gardening place, my friend decided that she’d like to pick up a few things, and then we made the plan to work on a garden of hers that is completely overgrown with weeds.

Here’s the garden. It’s got irises and stella d’oro daylilies in it, but it’s also completely choked out with weeds and junk trees. She’s been trying to get her landscaper to redo it for her for years, but he never has the time to do more than working on her current gardens. She’s not a gardener herself. So, I was surprised when she said she wanted to tackle this project! She even had to purchase a shovel and gardening gloves.

So, on Sunday we went after it. I dug up large chunks of daylilies and had her separate them out, while I continued to dig up the bed itself. We uncovered things.

Art, in fact. The previous owner was an artist, and there were clearly two pieces like the one above at one point. I ended up removing both pipes and the ceramic piece of art. When I first uncovered these, I was seriously worried that something was buried in there, a gas line or something, I mean, I am always concerned about random pipes when digging. But, once the fact that this was probably an old installation was established, I finished digging without concern.

I grabbed a photo before we got an opportunity to properly water the new garden bed and clean up around the edges, but it was also time for me to drive home and I wasn’t going to be around for that. In any case, we added a bunch of proper lilies of many different sizes and varieties. I chose a couple balloon flowers as my addition, knowing they are easy to care for and my friend would like the purple blooms that last all summer. Then, we added back the day lilies and the irises. And we mulched it all. We didn’t even have to go back to get more supplies, I calculated everything we would need perfectly, and that was great since we were on a major time crunch.

It turned out to be a lovely and productive weekend! I am glad we got that eyesore of a garden bed fixed, I’d been itching to do something about it for a year now, but never had the tools to do it. Plus, it’s better to do that job when the owner gets to pick her plants. She was so pleased with the result, and so it was a satisfying project for us both.

All in all, a great weekend! I am tired though, as I stayed in Okoboji quite a lot longer than I had planned. When I got home, Mr. Ink was still working on his rock wall area. But he was happy to take a break and take me on a tour of our gardens and show me what he’d picked up on clearance and what was now blooming. More photos of that to come as well!

I did get one photo of my current spinning progress though. This is the first 8 oz. of the CMF fiber. I am about halfway through the first bobbin on the second 8 oz. Not quick progress, but not bad progress either!

Upon my return home last night I was instructed to look for the surprise Mr. Ink had gotten me in the back of the truck. A load of mulch! Oh Goodie! Yes, you can read that somewhat sarcastically, it’s HOT! But, I do indeed want to get my veggie garden mulched before vacation so the friend who is taking care of our watering will have an easier time of it. So, no rest for the weary and weekend travel worn!