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<\/a><\/p>\nBut by the time I used the hoe to remove all the weeds from the new flower bed, Middle carried over buckets of compost to amend the soil, Pretty gradually worked her way down the row pressing in the endless packs of seeds, and Little pushed in 80 feet of border fencing to protect everything from being trampled by the guineas, those seeds were a bit more valuable.\u00a0 Certainly valuable enough that we didn’t want to let them wither and die when the rains from Beryl dried up.<\/p>\n
Besides, I had high hopes for all those little seeds.\u00a0 I was hoping for them to be a source of beautiful cut flowers for years to come.\u00a0 And I was trying to make up for that disaster with the dahlias.\u00a0 See, after the depressing onslaught of animal deaths this spring, the pet graveyard grew in leaps and bounds.\u00a0 We felt it needed a bit more than the simple boulder we’ve used to mark the place in the past.\u00a0 So Pretty made a lovely decorative stone to put in the graveyard.<\/p>\n
\n And I planted some bare root dahlias at the base of the boulder.\u00a0 I imagined it would be wonderful to see bright cheerful dahlias blooming in that corner of the yard year after year.\u00a0 Reminding us of the joyful times we had with the pets who had gone on before us.\u00a0 It was a great idea.\u00a0 It just went horribly wrong.\u00a0 Oh, the dahlias sprouted just fine, despite the heavy clay soil.\u00a0 And as their strong stalks reached for the sun, we anxiously awaited those glorious blooms.\u00a0 One day as we walked up the driveway, we spotted the first spiky bloom and rushed over.\u00a0 And stood there, gasping, in shock and dismay.<\/p>\n Because in lieu of bold, buoyant colors, the dahlias were a deep dark red.\u00a0 Almost blood red on the edge of the petals with a black sheen towards the center.\u00a0 Somewhere on the color scale between creepy and obscene.<\/p>\n All we could do was cover our eyes and rush away before we gagged.\u00a0 All things considered, not one of my gardening triumphs.\u00a0 And one that I will be reminded of, year after year.\u00a0 Awesome.<\/p>\n So I was determined to compensate for that mistake with a brightly colored cutting garden and I wasn’t going to let those new seedlings dry out.\u00a0 Luckily, we’ve got a wonderful new water hydrant in the garden.<\/p>\n So it was just a matter of choosing a sprinkler and getting a hose from the old system of hoses that ran through the woods to the garden.\u00a0 Most of those hoses had already been taken apart and attached to the hydrant and soaker hoses for the raised beds of veggies.<\/p>\n But there was one hose left.\u00a0 One hose, weaving through the treeline, tucked between rocks, buried under leaf debris.\u00a0 Somewhere in there:<\/p>\n Ugh.<\/p>\n I took off my usual gardening flip flops and put on my barn boots.\u00a0 I didn’t fancy walking through that underbrush with unprotected toes.\u00a0 Because intact toes are pretty valuable.\u00a0 And although I consider the ease of wearing flip flops in the barn worth the risk of stepping in some mud from Papa’s wallow or having Julia leave a hoof print on my instep in her rush to get on the milk stand, I don’t want to risk my bare toes against whatever is living in those woods.<\/p>\n Also, I should start choosing other footwear for my daily chores.\u00a0 Because I noticed I have a bit of a farmer’s tan.\u00a0 A farmer that wears flip flops tan.<\/p>\n How embarrassing.\u00a0 As if having Flintstone feet wasn’t bad enough.<\/p>\n With my feet properly protected, I put on my gardening gloves.\u00a0 Because wearing gloves is the first step in proper hand care.\u00a0 I believe the second step is a bit of lotion to cut down on the elephant wrinkles by your knuckles.\u00a0 Perhaps the third step is some cuticle cream.\u00a0 And there must be a fourth step that involves getting your nails to grow to all the same length.\u00a0 Obviously, I have never gotten past step one.<\/p>\n But there’s no need to add to the damage with pustulous poison ivy or bloody bramble scratches.\u00a0 Having people chuckle at your farmer’s tan is one thing.\u00a0 Having people recoil in horror at the sight of your hands when you go to hand over your money in the check out line is another.<\/p>\n So I finally stood at the edge of the wilderness, contemplating the use of my Walkman.\u00a0 Yes, I mean my Walkman.<\/p>\n I do not have an iPod or MP3 player or an android with music apps or anything else that only my children would know how to use.\u00a0 I have a Sony Walkman.\u00a0 That only plays radio stations.\u00a0 But it does have some fancy preset buttons.\u00a0 And a weather band.\u00a0 In case I need to know what the weather will be.\u00a0 While I am working outside.\u00a0 In the weather.\u00a0 Observing it with my own eyes.\u00a0 I guess it never hurts to have a second opinion.<\/p>\n But the use of a Walkman is not a simple decision.\u00a0 On one hand, listening to your favorite music (or at the least the DJ at the local radio station’s favorite music) is an excellent way to distract yourself from the dangerous hazards of yellow jackets, copperheads, beetles with alarmingly large pinchers, brightly colored millipedes (I’m pretty sure a bright color indicates an insect is poisonous.\u00a0 Or an insect’s attempt to make predators think it is poisonous.\u00a0 And, really, who wants to find out for sure?), spider webs, and spiders.\u00a0 Spider webs and spiders are two separate hazards.\u00a0 Everyone knows walking through the spiderweb and not knowing where the spider is can be just as bad as seeing a spider race past and not seeing exactly where it’s gone to hide.\u00a0 Basically, it’s better to be singing along to to What Doesn’t Kill You<\/a> than focusing on all those potential death threats.\u00a0 Wait, maybe Don’t Worry, Be Happy <\/a>is a better music choice.<\/p>\n On the other hand, it could be helpful to hear the rustle of leaves the copperhead makes before it strikes at you.\u00a0 Or the angry buzz of the first yellow jacket before the entire hive descends upon you.\u00a0 Or even the sound of your children calling, “Mom”, 10 times before they finally tap you on the shoulder to get your attention and, startled, you fall headfirst into a patch of poison oak.<\/p>\n I decided to listen to my Walkman.\u00a0 Because if I was the type of person to opt for the safe choice I wouldn’t have 30 hens, 20 chicks, 11 goats, 8 guineas, 4 ducks, 3 dogs, 2 lambs, a pony, a barn cat, and a pig.\u00a0 Obviously.<\/p>\n And I really do feel like I made an impressive effort to recover that hose.\u00a0 After all, it seemed silly to spend money on a new hose when there was a perfectly usable hose already located on the property.\u00a0 I figured it would probably cost $20 for a new hose when digging out the old one just cost a little bit of time and energy.<\/p>\n With that in mind I flipped over this stump to find the connection end.<\/p>\n I cleared away downed branches to get to this section.<\/p>\n I untangled this part from the field fencing.<\/p>\n I dug through the mud to unearth the repaired section that still leaks a bit.<\/p>\n With some finagling, I managed to free this part that was looped around a leyland cypress tree.<\/p>\n I even manged to track the hose through some chicken wire to where it disappeared under this branch.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n