dedicated to weed removal

A couple of observations: the lettuce is growing.  Slowly, but it’s getting’ there. Ed tells me we can pluck those baby leaves pretty soon now.

Second point (and after it I'll stop numbering): isn’t it interesting that we take out one thing and then, seconds later, put in something else? This is what we do: pluck out a weed, shovel in a different plant. Out, in, remove, replace. You could say that all my nonwork hours today were spent on the plucking side of the equation: the removal, the clearing.

Why? I have grander ideas on how I should spend my soon to be (after exam work) free time.

Here's one reason: Ed got up before dawn to create a new flower bed.

And I was up soon after, clearing it and so long as I was clearing it, I extended my great vacuuming hands and dug out weeds in neighboring patches. Like in this place – weedless, as of today.

(I appear to have forgotten that I could use gloves. My hands are raw from the hours of digging out roots.)

(Another side note: don't think that weeding is over and done with. You need only cast an evening glance toward the barn and the sheep shed to understand that there's lots more where that came from.)

We were to plant in the afternoon, but there wasn’t time. And so my hands ache, my back is sore and all we have to show for it is a truckload of weeds and nothing in their place.

Gardening is tough work. I sometimes wonder why I love it so.