Rediscovering Old Friends

This weekend, before I was struck with the plague, I rediscovered two things that had gotten lost in the weeds of our back corner garden. For Jeff's mother's sake, I will begin with the one that relates to turtles.

Last year, as summer was coming to an end, Jeffry decided to let his turtle Ichiban (which he and his mother have cared for since Jeff was a teen) roam the yard and soak up the last rays of the season. Ichiban however, decided that she did not wish to spend her winter in her terrarium, and would rather bury herself somewhere in our yard and wait for spring there. Being a stubborn and trixy little turtle she eluded all our attempts to find her, but I often worried when I had need to dig in the yard or mow the grass that she might come to an untimely ending. Had I not been more observant, she might have meet this end on Saturday as I was hacking, yanking and digging the weeds out of our corner garden. Luckily she caught my eye as she gazed out at me from the overgrown patch of mint which, until very recently, existed in the garden. Jeffry's mother will be happy to know that Ichiban is now safely returned to her cage.

The second thing that was reclaimed from the wilds was the garden itself! Over the winter the little garden patch in our backyard had become quite overgrown and was in desperate need of some TLC. Unfortunately I was in full on yard work mode when I started so I forgot to take a before picture, but it looked something like this:

This photo doesn't really do it justice, but just take my word that it was bad. Very bad. I had to reset several of the boards that hold the dirt in and the rock out, and i discovered several potato plants and green onions that had weathered the winter and were starting to grow again. I think the happiest part was getting rid of the giant mint patch that Jeffry had, until now, refused to let me get pull out. I will be planting a pot full of lovely not overgrown mint to make it up to him, and the chickens thought it was Christmas when I gave them all the weeds and creepy crawlies I had harvested.

As soon as we recover from the plague this patch will be planted with some onion sets, peas and (when the weather warms up a bit more) soy beans.