Sprucing up and planting

Ken and I have spent the morning doing spring things: he's been replacing the white-painted boards on the front steps and kitchen steps. The old boards had been in place ten years and were showing their age. 

 

When he removed the boards from the kitchen steps, he found that a critter of some kind had built a rather elaborate condominium under the steps. He filled a wheelbarrow full of the dirt that had been carried under the steps by the critter. Now Ken's devising a fence to put behind the steps to discourage any future squatters from moving in.

I've been doing projects smaller than the one Ken has tackled. I noticed early this morning the hummingbirds have arrived and are drinking thirstily at their feeder, so that inspired me to put an orange out for the orioles. When the hummers arrive, the orioles aren't far behind, so they just might blow into town some time this week. I want them to feel welcomed when they get here. Some years the orioles stay only a few days, then move on; some years a pair stays into early July, having built their nest and hatched their babies. I hope they'll stick around this year.

While poking around the Jack-in-the-pulpits, I noticed one of the Jacks is, indeed, in his pulpit this morning. He's shy, so I had to open the blossom a little so you can see him. Cute little rascal, isn't he?

Last spring I spotted beautiful hanging baskets of flowers at a local greenhouse and threw caution to the wind, purchasing six of them at around $22-24 each. It wasn't long before the baskets looked like the dickens. They looked worse than death warmed over. I don't know why they didn't flourish, but they definitely didn't. Over $120 down the drain, and I don't easily part with $120 only to realize I've wasted my money. So this year I bought trays of wave petunias, dusty miller, and geraniums at Lowe's and have started transplanting them into hanging baskets. For about 1/4 the cost, I know I'll get at least my money's worth, if not a whole lot more.

It's too early to leave these flowers out over night, because "all danger of frost" has not passed and will not pass until the end of May or early June. In the meantime the wagon of flowers will go into the garage on chilly nights and come out again the next morning.

And on a completely unrelated note, one of my sisters and I decided to drive up to Bangor yesterday to have a leisurely look-around at TJ Maxx. Bangor's TJ's is probably the very best we've ever seen. As we were driving along, we started reminiscing about the male teachers we'd had in high school and how we'd lusted after them. Just having these young, handsome men walk over to our desks to offer help with math or science reduced us to, well, giddy teenagers. As we were laughing at our behavior back then, my sister suddenly said, "You realize, don't you, these guys are now in their 70's and 80's, if they're even still alive." That sobered us up.