Summer Hours are for Wimps

No coffee yet (and that's just a crime), no music either. It's Monday but it might as well be Sunday because it is Memorial Day and thus a holiday. I am posting because, even though I said I was taking a three-day weekend, my shipping schedule--compounded with a couple of mess-ups--dictated otherwise. And as Bill pointed out yesterday, I haven't been posting enough anyway. I didn't finish Friday until late so there were no summer hours for me! Maybe next weekend...

So it's 9:30 in the morning and I already have three full kiln loads in and am watering the lawn for the first time this year. I'm not much of a grass person normally. I'm against the resource-intensive care most of them require in order to thrive. But I put in zoysia sod three years ago and, in spite of the dogs and my decided lack of interest in fertilizing, weeding (chemically or otherwise), and watering, it has more or less thrived until this year. This year I decided to mow it before it came out of winter dormancy in order to get it down to it's optimum height (we were pretty lax about mowing the last couple of years too). But taking it down so short let the weeds take hold before it greened up this spring. Then our current drought set the cap on its decline so I find myself with sad, patchy little bits of green. As they deserve better care from their steward, I girded my loins and set off to Lowe's yesterday. There, I armed myself with a weed-killing turf-builder (in liquid formula so I re-seed sooner), zoysia seed, starter fertilizer, a hand spreader for dispersal of said fertilizer and seed, a sprinkler and another hose (the current one being use to hand-water the posts of flowers every day. That I manage.)

When I got home I staked up the drooping bamboo, used Round-up on the weeds growing in the stone patio, and mowed the lawn. Today I will put together the new pressure washer (also acquired at Lowe's) and clean off the deck and the parking pad outside the studio annex.

Even though this is the forum for posts on GLASS WORK, clearly there is a twining of tasks this weekend that no longer allows for clear separation between the studio and the garden. That is the way is should be on the weekends I suppose. Move the hose, grind the edges of some more plates. Water the flowers, load some large display panels into the kiln. Fill the pond, pack an order for shipping. Summer, it's what's happening. Later today I think we're going to see the giant bugs at the Botanical Garden (an exhibit, not a reality).