Another Month Down

And what a rush it was, sort of. You understand how when you are looking forward to a series of events, say a few days off from work, time seems to slow to a crawl. That describes April.

Started with the first mowing of the yard - followed by the head-cold or allergy of the Spring, as usual. Though I can't blame it on mowing the yard - I had the same illness a year ago while I was in Hungary. But recovered much more quickly. This year I was just getting better when I had to cook my famous barbecue chicken for my brother's birthday. That added a week to the phlegm.
Started a grass growing experiment out back of the house, just to see what happens. My dirt is mostly orange clay/sand. I got a load of topsoil for $10, spread it out, and planted seed to see what happens. Here it is a few weeks later, and that area is mostly green fescue. It remains to see how level it will be.

We had a wicked cold snap over the Easter weekend, which took out a lot of my azalea blooms, and a couple of the nandinas I had in pots. And, when I got home one day after Easter, there were my mail-order roses. So, some planting was commenced. I planted all three of my mail-order roses, and a white one I found at Lowe's. I planted all but two of the nandinas, and both of my "Wolfpack" red azaleas. Now it's all "wait and see".

I had sort of hoped to the the azalea bed tilled and planted this year. At least started on planting. But as time went on, and mowing the yard becomes more necessary, I may put off the "planting portion" of the azalea bed build. I'll still get it tilled, and filled, and re-tilled. Ready for next year. Then I'll have to move plants around again.

One of the constraints on my time was the upcoming "few days off" to be spent at MerleFest. Four wonderful days of camping and listening to good music. The last weekend of April. We went last year, and I found out that that was the 19th annual, which made this year's the 20th annual. You'd think it would have been a little more special.

But I did get to see Earl Scruggs play both "The Ballad of Jed Clampett" *and* "Foggy Mountain Breakdown"....so it was pretty darn good after all. There's more to that whole adventure, I'm just not in a place to sum it up right now. My blood alcohol level is a bit low. And I'm at work.