Spring Fever

Why does it always hit too early?

It's February! I can't go outside and work in the yard. Not most years, anyway. This is not most years.

It's supposed to be the upper 50s today. Unable to help myself, I went out last night - in a dress and dress shoes, no less - and dug around the maple stump just to see if I could.

There's a very real chance I'll be out in the yard tonight, tomorrow and Sunday, moving dirt from the top of the yard to the bottom one wheelbarrow load at a time.

The probability of bringing in a load of dirt presses on my brain. At this point, my dirt is so compacted and ground in with clay (thanks to the first arborist's misuse of a slipskid), I don't know that I'll ever get it back to what could be called "level" without some outside assistance.

I placed my first online plant order last night, too. Sometime in April, I'll come home to a dwarf peach tree, blueberry bushes, sedum ground covers, hosta and a bi-colored butterfly bush, among other things, for under $100. I'll be posting pics on FB, no doubt. This is by no means the end of the plant orders, but the very, very beginning of a long process of transformation.

I hope my enthusiasm is up to the task.