Monday, April 20, 2009

Here Comes the Sun

We’ve finally hit a point in the weather here in Salt Lake where the chill of winter is finally dying, killed by a jealous sun who wants to be celebrated by a city jaded by overcast skies plagued with inversion, combined with scraping, slipping, and supersized coats. This weekend, I don’t think I was inside for more than 2 hours, except to sleep, or shop at Home Depot, and even that was mostly outside in the garden department.

This is our first spring at our new home, and so we’re seeing what pops up in the yard as the ground thaws. The good things…tulips, grass in the front yard, some grass in the back yard. The bad things…goat-head thorns, dandelions galore, crab grass, spots of nothing in the back yard, and just weeds in general filling the side yard and flower bed. Luckily, I survived the weekend with only one blister, and the dry skin can easily be healed with some lotion. My body’s not too sore, just a little tight in the hamstrings. Surprisingly, my back doesn’t hurt at all, despite lifting brick after brick off the Home Depot shelf into the cart, and then into the car, and then onto my sidewalk, and into the dirt.

So here are the projects I did accomplish. I’ve never been a serious gardener, and in my life have tended to just give up and leave projects that require too much energy, especially physically. But the sun seemed to act as if I had Kryptonian blood in my veins, fueling me to continue my battle against the ever-encroaching weeds. I put in a rose garden next to the garage, complete with brick edging and black mulch. It’s lovely, but the not-so-lovely part included hours of shoveling and pulling the weeds up, making sure all roots were apprehended so as not to invade into my lovely garden. Also, there was the dispensing ant poison so they don’t eat my lovely roses once they bloom.

Once that project was finished, then began the weeding of the flower garden next to the porch. Oh my. This made the rose garden look easy, because at least then I could just shovel everything out. THIS was more of a challenge, as there are lovely things growing in with the weeds, things with very delicate root structures, so I had to use my hands and gingerly pull things that were choking out the flowers. This took a good 2 days, and I’m still not completely finished. I did manage to edge the garden with more brick, and plant my bleeding hearts. Today’s project entails more weeding, and then finally planting my strawberries, columbine (which I think today is a fitting day to do it, considering it’s the 10th anniversary of that tragedy. I have pictures of the aftermath since we used to live there, but they’re in Tennessee in a box somewhere, with a lot of other things I left when I moved back to Utah), buckets of gold, and snapdragons.

Sunday was perhaps the prettiest day of all. After doing some yard work, Luke and I took the dogs to Tanner Park, an off-leash dog park highly recommended by Luke’s cousin Dave. All I can say is that place has to be the doggie equivalent of the Elysian Fields. It’s this huge area in between these benches (if you’re not from Utah, the benches are geological parts of land elevation and valleys created by the faults here) that has a stream running down from Parley’s canyon and lots of forested area with trails for sniffing and chasing tails. It was vast, and even if your dog took off, you’d be chasing them a long time before they reached any sort of area of peril. We learned Charlotte is a cautious water dog, who accidentally fell in the river (which was running high and cold with spring run-off from the mountains) but enjoyed wading around. Ham, on the other hand, won’t even get his paws wet, but got close enough for a drink. We walked so far, the dogs slept the rest of the day when we got home. It was wonderful, and I hope to make that a weekly event. The only thing I didn’t like was all the people. I guess I have to think of this place as primarily for dogs to socialize and play, and not to escape the grind of the city. That’s what the mountain trails are for.

I’m looking forward to temps hitting the 80s this week, but I’d prefer if that’s where they stayed all summer. On another note, Luke and I are going to start training for the Vegas Half Marathon. After watching the marathoners run by the house Saturday morning, it was great motivation to see these people, who had run 20 miles by the time they got to us, pushing on. Plus, it’s a great way to lose weight, as I think we saw only 2 guys who were a little heavier. So, I’m starting 2 miles a day 5 days a week today, and we’ll see what happens. I’ve got like 7 months to train, so I don’t think it will be too bad.

What a wonderful weekend!