I’ve been busybusybusy working in the garden. It’s shaping up beautifully. About 15-20 more bags of mulch are needed for the back, but the weeding, pruning, and planting are done (except for maintenance, of course. We have English Ivy and Euonymus and Japanese Holly, so I’ll be yanking up root runners forever.) I have moved so many shrubs, it’s not funny. The fish are already swimming excitedly to the surface of the pond when I come out – “Look!! It’s FOOD LADY!!!!” Gotta replant the aquatic plants and do some pond vacuuming this weekend, then it should be nothing but food and chemicals and filter rinsing, none of them particularly hard jobs.

My mom gave me four rose plants that are vigorous and fragrant (to combat the dog poop smell from the neighbors’ houses) (well, also because she loves roses and wants me to have some, too) and three of them were quite happy to go into the ground. Fragrant Cloud, though, began drooping almost immediately. I watered, I had filled the hole with the happy rose stuff mom gave me, but it looked like it was on death’s door. I figured I couldn’t make it worse, so I dug it back up and plopped it in a pot of water. Well. Less than 24 hours later, even the buds are standing up straight. Persnickety plant. I’m going to hit a garden center to get some soil amendments and replant it with some Soil Moist crystals, too.

So, anyway, that all relates to the title of this post because I’ve been very sore and stiff from all this garden work. That’s not a surprise, because I haven’t been using these muscles to this extent in ages. What is surprising, though, is how much harder it suddenly is to get up from the ground! Whether I’m kneeling, sitting, or crouching, getting upright is now a process instead of something I do without much thought. It doesn’t hurt, it’s just that it takes more of an effort to get a response from the muscles and change my balance as I get up. It happens in stages rather than in one smooth motion.

So, it’s not just gray hairs and wrinkles and hot flashes. Just another one of those things you kind of sort of know is coming with age that nevertheless takes you by surprise. I’m not bothered or upset about it, just observing it as part of the process. Because I’m not old, you know. Just getting older. And that is definitely better than not getting older.

Carolyn has found a couple of computer classes she wants to take. Right around the corner at the college. Piece o’cake. Audrey, on the other hand, would be better served by art classes, but she’s in an odd spot. She’s too old for kids’ classes, too young for adult classes, and most of the teen classes are for crafts – not her speed. So I did find a few places that offer fine arts – drawing, oil painting, etc., for teen level. . .40 minutes away in Monmouth County. We’ll have to see, have to keep looking. *sigh*

In the meantime, I have more shrubs to move and plants to plant, and when the contractor starts the exterior work on the house, we’ll have to ask him to rent a slightly larger dumpster than he had planned. We have much clutter and debris that would look better in the trash than around the house. Oh, and did I mention we have a frog living in the pond? Hubby said it would eat some of our smaller fish, but I’m OK with that. We have more fish than we know what to do with.

Springhill Gardens, one of the few mail order plant sources I’ll use, sent me replacements for the ferns that didn’t come up before. I had a different idea of where to plant them while I was waiting, so it was kind of good that the first batch was a dud. We also went out and bought two arbors to frame the slate patio, and I’m trying to germinate some Grandpa Ott’s morning glories and some moonflowers to climb up both of them. The moonflowers are much pickier than morning glories.

I wanted to have some other angles, but they all show too many works in progress. Oh, well.

This area is filling in nicely, too. I can hardly wait until the rhododendrons to either side of the azaleas catch up. It’ll be stunning.