Frustration

There are few things more galling that having the time, energy, and willpower to work on a project with a deadline, only to be stymied by the weather.  Because in case you didn't notice, it's rained every day for more than a week here in Cleveland, and my yard isn't exactly well-drained.  It's miles beyond moist, past wet, and straight into "I'd need hipboots to go in and transplant those hostas today" territory.  Seriously, I have to put on my knee-high rubber boots to take stuff back to the compost pile, since otherwise the water slops over the tops of my shoes and gets my socks all muddy.  And that's in the drier section of the backyard ...

I spent the first couple days of the rain shopping for stuff for our new patio room - buying the light fixtures and ceiling fan we need to install, scoping out furniture and accessories we might want to get, things of that nature.  Tee-hee, look at me, I get a break from having to do stuff in the yard!  Construction is now two weeks behind schedule, and I've run out of places to put stuff while I'm waiting for the room, so I can't shop anymore.

Putting in the new fire pit patio thingee was accomplished during a 2-day break in the weather, and was only possible because I didn't mind that the ground underneath it was getting squished into hard-packed oblivion.  Planting our front beds got done mostly before the rain started, but I've been able to throw in a plant here and there when the rain abates, since the soil up front is much better drained than the soil in the back, but even then I sort of expected there to be a welling up of water in the bottom of the holes I dug.  I should have planted St. John's wort ... then I could just go out and graze for a while and feel better, right?  Nah, it wouldn't be worth the wacko dreams.

Earlier this week I spent part of the day cleaning the craft room, doing some filing and sorting that's been waiting all winter for me to feel like doing it.  Yay.

Yesterday I decided that sometimes you just have to give in and say, "Fuck it, you win, I'm going back to bed and maybe this will all be over when I wake up."  And when I woke up 3 hours later, lo and behold, the sun was shining!  True, there were big gray storm clouds on the horizon, but I had at least an hour-long window of opportunity, and I wasn't going to let it go to waste.  I high-tailed it over to the nursery and finally got the witch hazel I've wanted to add to the back yard, and I found a dwarf (actual fruiting) cherry tree that will look great in the front yard, and then - score! - I found a six-way espaliered apple tree.  Just the day before I had been telling Jason that I sort of wanted one of those to put in the edible garden up front, but nobody around here had them.  Never been so glad to be wrong in my life!

Of course, now I've got a 5' tall apple tree sitting in the middle of my front yard, waiting to be planted (or fall over in the wind and break off one of the grafts) ... which I can't do until I move the bush that's already there.  Which I can't do until the ground dries out some.  Which won't happen until tomorrow, at the earliest.  Which is when the rain is supposed to start again.

Gah.  Guess I'll put on the rubber boots and try to prune back the crocus foliage, or do something else that can be accomplished without actually stepping into any of my beds.

Or maybe I'll just say, "Screw it," and go see a movie.