Plotting

Brilliant sun today. I was outside in jeans and a tank top pruning out dead wood in an ornamental flowering cherry. The tree is mostly moss, with just a scattering of pink flowers. I needed a saw. Didn't have a saw. So it became an exercise in looking at a tangled conundrum and deciding how best to approach it. I began with the smallest possible details, the driest twigs snippable and within reach. Then I stood on the big rocks beneath the tree and reached for higher and thicker branches. Pulled on some until they snapped. Considered jumping up and reaching for those just a bit too high, grabbing and swinging, but decided that this probably wasn't a good idea. (It's important to remember that I am no longer ten years old.) It only took about a half hour, and now I have an erratic scruff-of-a-tree which should probably just be cut down but I kind of like its mossy hide. I'll plant some Heavenly Blue morning glories at its base and let them twine and adorn. There was a layer of moss bits and bark bits and lichen bits all over me when I was done. I was halfway to becoming human compost.

I've been scouting the yard, watching where the sun goes, to find a good spot for some tomato plants, some herbs. Dahlias, sunflowers, cosmos, violas, nasturtiums, clematis. It's high time I started gardening again. It's tricky: lots of trees, odd sunny corners, too much shade but I might just have to give in to begonias, impatiens, ajuga, sweet woodruff, a few ferns. But I'm accustomed to gardening by the square inch so I'll
make good use of those few sunny patches.