Not much. A lot. I don’t know. At least that’s what it feels like.

I was frustrated all summer because insurance wouldn’t pay for my Adderall. I guess they still aren’t, but finally my husband got it anyway. I think I got a tenth accomplished of what I had hoped. Pretty normal for me without medication.

I received a notice that my wood chips had arrived, but there were no wood chips. Turns out the big trucks the tree trimmers use can’t maneuver on our narrow street, so they were unable to drop them and I don’t have any place they can drop them. So . . . free wood chips are out, for me. I called Bark Boys and they are actually pretty reasonable. Much better than our yard maintenance guys were going to charge. I’m not sure when I can get it, but soon, I hope. Meanwhile our north side remains just dirt.

I’m not sure why the sheds didn’t get cleaned out. Iqbal was supposed to help with those. I guess neither of us had any energy or ambition. I want to get rid of the metal shed. If we can’t summon the energy to clean it, we certainly never have enough energy to paint it, especially since we can’t even reach the back because it’s less than a foot from the fence to the yard eight beet below.

I did manage to get the trees out of the rose pots, except for the one that had already killed the rose bush. I cut it to the dirt, but it came back. It’s a yellow maple (from our front tree) and is actually pretty when it’s cut back. I decided I’ll keep it a maple bush. If it dies from being kept cropped, so be it. I just don’t have room for any more big trees.

I managed to repot several of the roses. I had hoped to do them all, but that didn’t happen. I didn’t manage to cut back the lilac bushes another third. If the neighbor below/behind us hadn’t planted his tree where he did, I could just let the on lilac be a tree. However, although I like his tree a lot, it grows too much into our yard and branches out into my border (it’s planted about eight feet below our ground level). It made my lilac lean too much. LOL Before he trimmed it the first time, it was ten to fifteen feet into our yard. It almost reached our balcony! Anyway, now I try to keep it trimmed to the fence, more or less and I want to keep my plants close to fence height (about four feet).

My old sofa, that I had turned into a planter box after the cats destroyed it, finally fell in on one side. I’m in the process of tearing it all apart. It seems to be lots of bad wood, except where there are nails or screws. I saved the wheels. We were wondering what to do with the springs, but as I was pulling the wood off them, it became very clear that they’ll make a great trellis! They’ll hold the honeysuckle or maybe even the wisteria. So the Dream Portal lives on!

I had wanted to get the garden wall around the deck built up, and make a small wall to hold dirt in the bed around the maple tree in back. Unexpected expenses prevented that. I hope I can get the bricks before the end of spring. If it’s cool enough, I can do the work myself. And I’d like to be able to plant things in time for them to get a bit established before summer, when it never rains.

The blueberries need to be repotted and moved out of what has become a mostly shady area. I also dug up and potted some blackberries. They’re doing well, but need a good fence to grow on. The plants I moved out of the front yard can stay there for the winter. Although it’s on the north side, the big maple and bushes on the west, the neighbor’s overgrown laurels on the north, the house on the south, and a lot of not close trees downhill to the east, make it the most protected area in the yard. I’m thinking of taking all the potted trees and bushes there for the winter.

Last year I planted a rose branch and this year I had two new roses bushes. Even though they’re not even a foot tall, both of them bloomed twice this summer. In late August or early September I planted spirea sticks when I trimmed that bush and two more rose sticks. One of the roses has rooted and three of the spirea have new leaves. Yay! I have the spirea and several hydrangea planted in front of the house. The hydrangea are supposed to be drought tolerant. Maybe they are, but hot afternoon sun burns the blooms and leaves. And they have remained rather small. The spirea, on the other hand, don’t seem to mind low water or hot sun. Their leaves remained green and they bloomed profusely all summer. So the hydrangea will go to a shadier spot (maybe where the blueberries are) and I’ll plant the spirea sticks where the hydrangea are now.

The only building I did this year was adding a third step to the deck and adding a metal railing. I was going to have two railings, but the steps aren’t wide enough. Next year, I’ll put the second railing on the steps to the road.

I may not have the strength and energy I used to have for gardening, but I can still do some things I used to do. Albeit, quite a bit slower.

I’m still doing more planning (wishing) than actual doing, but I finally am getting back to my various needle crafting hobbies.

I’ve been planning this for ages–placemats for my BFF in New York. It was a learning experience as I’ve never stitched on this . . . whatever they’re made of. I was happy to have the magnetic hoop. I’m also happy I chose these designs from Tattered Stitch Embroideries. Her designs are light, and stitch out quickly. Taking into account my trials with placement, I think they came out well. I think she’ll like them.

Next into the embroidery machine were some lace Christmas ornaments. Wish all machine embroidery was so easy! I got these designs at Designs by Sick. What was so nice about stitching these our was that it stitched out all the designs while I was able to work in the other room

This has been sitting in drafts since 2024/10/24. I don’t know what else I had planned to write.