Three day weekend? I don't have to rush the chores!

Today is the start of Memorial Day Weekend, which is both the unofficial start to the summer season, but is also the start of Lilac Festival Weekend in Lisbon, where I teach. Either way, this low-40s and drizzly weather is really not what anyone would hope for. I'm getting too old to go out in the wet and cold to get fried dough and watch a parade. What I am doing today is pretty low-key, compared to the work I've been tasking myself with over the last couple of weekends. 

Today will be a "normal" Saturday: groceries and errands, folding some laundry, doing some computer work. I'll probably tidy things up here and there, too. If the weather should choose to improve, I do have some things I want to do, like arrange the deck furniture and put up new solar lights. Probably that'll wait until tomorrow. G and I will be doing the rest of the garden project, and he's got a list of other outdoor chores he wants to putter around with. I plan to put the garden sets in on Monday, when the more seasonal temperatures and sunshine are promised. We've also got three new (small) shrubs to put in the ground-- that will likely be done tomorrow, too, because they need time to set down roots and so on. I bought two winterberry holly plants (one male, one female, so we get berries for the birds). And I got a pretty little dogwood. The question is where to put the dogwood. I know kind of where the winterberry shrubs are going, though I do have to be mindful of the fact that they grow pretty large over time. The dogwood might live in the front yard; but again, I must be mindful of how big it will likely get. True, it can be trimmed when it gets too large-- assuming it survives. I have tried and tried to get things to grow in the front yard, but the heat from the road, coupled with road salt and so on, tends to make about a third of the yard unusable--scraggly grass, and sand, and weeds grow well. 

I also bought some heirloom scarlet runner bean seeds. I want to try to grow those for the birds as well. I am not a fan of the hummingbird feeders, since a/ it can go bad and hurt the birds, and b/ it draws bears. We are still putting out our feeders, but bring them in nightly. So these vines are supposed to blossom with bright red flowers that hummers like. I just have to make sure that the other birds don't nab the seeds!

I'll be glad to see/feel warmer and sunnier days. The news cycle and the current weather pattern are both intensely depressing, and I just can't even. 

I hope you have a good Saturday,

C