Getting Help Creating Beauty

After taking a header on the deck last Friday, I’ve been moving very gingerly. I’m surprised I could still walk. I’m bruised and achy down my entire right side. For the next few days, I did minimal garden work.

But by Tuesday, I had to get outside, first deadheading the lilies, then moving a couple of stones from the rock pile to the hibiscus border. I set two bricks as steppingstones to access the crabapple for pruning.

On my next stint outdoors (I do a little work at a time), I pulled sample paint cans from cupboards above the broom closet to play around with new deck color. I added two different colors to the areas on the porch and deck where I’d put the first color Wednesday. Oh, I’m having such a dilemma choosing. 

Andy and his new roomie, Justin, came over. Justin began moving the rock pile and placing the small stones in the lower tier of the boulder garden. I asked Andy to take out the Russian olive on the left side of the driveway. It’s not a pretty shrub and it hides the beautiful ornamental grass which I never get a chance to see. I also asked him to clean up the growth around the stumps.

He went over and above. Next thing I knew, he not only had taken down the growth with the string trimmer, he brought over his lawn mower and cut all the little scrub brushy stuff even into the dried-up road water runoff pond and along the edge of the property. Then he took the string trimmer and cleaned off the big boulders. 

Leo says the bigger one is a perfect look-out resting place.

Meanwhile, I decided to paint the letters on a garden sign Don and Carol gave me years ago. The hanger hooks rusted and broke, but the sign is still nice. However, it was just a dull greenish-gray. Last year I spray painted the whole thing yellow intending to paint the letters, leaves, and flowers other colors. I never got around to it.

My work bench was messy with tools, projects to work on, and things to put away which I didn’t get to putting up this year. I cleared a small area and started painting the letters of the sign with Benjamin Moore majestic purple. It didn’t take long for my back and neck to start aching as I hunched over the letters to see into the grooves and get lines straight. I didn’t give up, though, and pushed through.

I swear it took me an hour to paint “A GARDEN sings songs of Nature’s SPLENDOR” with a tiny art brush. (The capital letters are how they are on the sign.) By then, my feet were screaming, too, especially as I was still recovering from the fall a few days prior. Enough done for the day.

I love my gardens and yard. It IS all about: “Creating Beauty for Myself, Creates Beauty for Others.”