The most thrilling new development is that my contractor came with a couple of his workers yesterday and finished framing my sidewalk and stoop. He’d hoped to have the sidewalk poured today, but apparently, all the concrete guys are up in the northern part of the state installing or re-installing windmills. I’m not really sure what the story is. All I know is that no one could come do my job until Monday. Meantime, I can enjoy the esthetics of the framework, especially since, as you can see, it used up a bunch of scrap lumber leftover from other projects.
If all goes as planned, sometime next week, I will actually be able to go out the backdoor. Even better, I will be able to go directly to the garage. Yay!
Now I just have to figure out what I want to do with the island between the sidewalks. Plants of course, but do should I fill in the hilly area with dirt and then do some sort of ground cover? Do I do a container garden? (I will be doing a container garden between the house and the ramp at the bottom of the photo, so perhaps that will be too many containers.) Should I put in a bush or some sort of fancy boulder? Or do I leave as is, and just plant whatever and see what happens. So many choices!
On the middling thrilling front, I should be getting a few plants next week that I’d ordered from a desert nursery, in an effort to see what will grow in this alkaline, dried-out clay soil. I could put some of those plants in that island, but I think I’d like to something less haphazard since it will be the most visible and visited garden spot in my yard.
On the not so thrilling front, I’d ordered some protein bars to add to my scant emergency food supply. (As of now, that supply consists of a couple cans of beans, a couple cans of tuna, and three freeze-dried meals leftover from my camping days.) The bars were supposed to be low carbohydrate, but it turns out they were high carbohydrate. Apparently, they did some sort of shady math to subtract out the carbohydrates. They didn’t subtract out the carbohydrates themselves, you understand, just played around with the numbers to get a “net” figure. Luckily, I hadn’t paid a lot for these bars — they were a sample pack that I somehow got for half price. And anyway, they are just for emergencies. (You notice that I use the full word — carbohydrates? No “carbs” for me!)
But truly, those bars are a minor non-thrill. Greater by far is the thought of finally getting some of the necessary work done on my back yard!
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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator
Bertram's Blog 
September 20, 2020 at 12:40 am
Hi Pat some suggestions. If you can get help to move and watering. You can have some big pots for the plants. I have lots of bambous in big pots. Easy to look after you can have the leaves throughout the year.
If you put directly in the soil that will be a big problem of invading your neighborhood. If you like contemplating flowers try to find some plants that you can have flowers in all seasons.
If you are going to have lot of leaves in the future please buy a compost bin you can change your soil without fertilizer and you can recycle your
tea, coffee, when you peel your vegetables, fruits, empty eggs box, spoiled vegetables, fruits and everting no plastic no meat.
Good plants and flowers with pondering make you write lovely articles why not another beautiful book !!…
September 20, 2020 at 8:46 am
Thank you for the suggestions! I am new to gardening appreciate any help I can get!
September 20, 2020 at 1:57 pm
Looks like you will have some interesting planting to do. If you want the name of a good protein bar, let me know.
September 20, 2020 at 2:08 pm
After this fiasco, I decided to stick to real food. No bars!