The Last Few Days Have Been Something

I'm sore, burnt, and have tons of work to do. Last Friday my mom, a friend and her son, and me, all went down to Ohio 200 miles away to my ex's house to dig as many plants from my flower beds as we could fit inside the little 4'x8' trailer and the backs of both of the SUV's. And we didn't get them all. So Saturday my mom, brother, and me, went back down there while we still had the trailer and hauled some more. Still did not get all that I wanted, but got the majority. I could have grabbed a few others that would have fit, but I was so tired from digging I just didn't care anymore. I have roughly about 400 plants that I brought up here.

I suppose it's a good thing that I didn't grab more, now that I have some of them spaced out around in the beds I made, I wouldn't have had room for more. I'm afraid I won't have room for all of my hostas. Some may have to go in pots and I may have to dig out more grass. In the meantime, they'll get planted pretty close together and will be crowded for a while just so I can get them in the ground.

Speaking of planting, the soil from which they came is a sticky, clumpy clay loam which was saturated when we went to dig up the plants. We kept soil around the roots to help keep them alive until I can get them planted, but it is so compacted around the roots that I have to blast the soil off with the hose. I cannot plant them as they are, the soil here is sandy and that compacted soil, when it dries out, will act as a barrier keeping water from getting to the roots and make it hard for the plants to establish themselves. Right now it's raining, so I'm hoping the rain will wash off some of that soil.

This is just the daylilies, the hostas and other perennials are packed around the shade of the deck, their bed can't be seen in this picture.

I have a long week or two ahead of me to get everything in the ground. I'm exhausted already. I've put in a lot of work prepping for my plants, and now it'll take a while to get them in the ground. At least this is getting me outside, exercising, and maybe lose some weight (already lost a few pounds). I doubt I'll get much done writing-wise, I haven't even looked at my manuscript in almost a week. I may just have to work on editing a little here and there, but after a full day of gardening, and now looking for a job, I think I'm just going to be too exhausted to care. My goal this year was to start querying by June--perhaps I need to stop making such goals when it comes to my writing. I never seem to reach them, always something gets in the way.