Is it Springtime Yet?

To make a long story short (translation: I can’t remember what happened when), all of the plants got planted (and the stump guy did come over and grind out a lot of stumps). I actually can’t remember what plant got planted first, which is rather amazing since this is the first thing I planted in more than 50 years, or maybe the first thing I planted in my entire life, and this momentous event occurred in just the past several days.

In sum: Two hydrangea trees (one in the sunny south yard, one in the back yard), two different kinds of flowering azaleas (one next to each of the hydrangea trees), two forsythias (one between my yard and Digby’s and one along the long fence that separates my yard from that of my plant-loving next-door neighbor), and four ilexes. Three of the four ilexes are near the deck. I periodically sat down on the deck where I often sit so that I could contemplate where it would be nice for my eye to fall upon an ilex (holly). Along the long fence, lo and behold I discovered a quite large holly that my father likely planted, so I put the final ilex nearby, so they can be friends. My father’s holly is the classic one a person might think of, with the slightly poky leaves and red berries, strongly associated with Christmas. My four new ilexes are called “soft touch.” They look different, but are equally comely.

I frequently nearly lose my balance in the back yard, including one sickening moment when my knee threatened to bend backward. My balance when riding a bicycle is impeccable, but navigating this sloping expanse which is also riddled with substantial and lumpy roots is challenging. (My sister says that eventually our mother could not walk in the back yard.) Maybe I will get to know certain paths through the yard over time, but for now, I am walking slowly and carefully, repeating to myself the mantra, “Feel with your foot.”

In the course of planting these things, I have learned a couple of lessons that I am sure I will never forget, since doing it wrong the first time around entailed a huge amount of extra time and effort. Regarding the forsythia between my place and Digby’s, I went out there and cleared the area I had in mind, pulling up ivy and other plants. I ended up with a lovely expanse of dirt maybe six feet square, picked out a spot in the center, started digging—and bumped into a huge tree root. I adjusted the spot and continued digging, soon to bump into yet another massive root, and then a third. I ended up edging closer to Digby’s yard than I had originally intended, though not too much closer, and the lesson I learned was that I should pick the exact spot where I want to plant something and just start digging. I can clear the surrounding vegetation later if the spot proves to be fine, or move elsewhere immediately if the spot isn’t suitable. As it is, I hope that forsythia will be able to send its roots over and under the tree roots.

A second much smaller lesson was that the mulch is supposed to extend out past the drip line of the plant (the drip line being the outermost point where water, such as rainwater, drips off the plant; I am having to look up many, many things).

One evening I got on a roll and planted four of the final five things (and only did not plant the fifth because it became truly dark; plus at 7:30 p.m., a lot of mosquitos arrived). The two hydrangea trees had the largest root balls and required the most effort. These four things were all small, but nonetheless I was exhausted and achey by the time I was done. Normally I do not have back problems, but now I have back problems. Ditto glute problems. Normally I do have shoulder problems, and at the moment, they are bad enough that the fingers on my right hand are tingling. My sister politely didn’t say anything, but I could see her registering that I drop a lot of things: BAM! “Oops!” BAM! “Oops!” This is my baseline of many years, but it might be even worse when my fingers are tingling. My hands are increasingly arthritic, also contributing to post-gardening pain.

I began to feel a bit disheartened about my plans to be a gardener. Maybe I just can’t. When my mother moved here, she was 67 and still gardening away. We have photographs of lovely things she created outside. Can it be that, at 64, my gardening days will be winding up soon? And if I’m not going to garden, what’s the point of being here rather than in San Francisco? I think this is not an all or nothing thing. I don’t think the message is that I ought not to garden. I think it is that I need to not overdo, and if I can do only a little, then that’s fine. I was thinking maybe an hour of gardening on yard work days should be the limit, but realized there is no need to make a rule, as tempting as it always is to make a rule. The need is to be aware of how I’m feeling and respond appropriately.

I did some raking yesterday: not fun for a perfectionist. I immediately integrated another lesson: Heed the wind direction. I came upon a nice idea online about raking being a conversation with one’s lawn, in part because excessive tearing at the grass with one’s rake can harm it. Instead, notice if it looks like the lawn is fine with the leaves or if it might be happier if some / most of them were removed. You do want to get the leaves off the lawn before they get covered with snow. A sodden mass of leaves on the lawn can kill patches of it by spring. (This I learned a year or two ago.)

Spring! Is it here yet? I feel uncomfortably cold a lot in the past few days. The heat is set to 70 degrees. I believe it is impossible literally to freeze to death in a place where it is 70 degrees, but I feel a chill I cannot banish with current garments (except for those moments when I suddenly feel like I’m boiling to death). I think I need sweatpants.

I also need yoga. I was looking around online and saw that there is a weekly class at the Ann Arbor Senior Center, which is part of the parks and recreation department. They have bridge lessons there! They play Scrabble; the description mentioned “riotous conversation.” I am totally going to the senior center for riotous conversation and to check out the yoga class. I love the idea of playing bridge with other old ladies, but I have the vague idea that riotous conversation might not be welcome during bridge. My grandmother played bridge. I believe it was the foundation of her impressive social life, but I don’t think the socializing was mainly at the card table.

Oddly, neither of the two surveyors I contacted ever called me back, but the internet said you don’t really need to pay for professional surveying unless there is a dispute that needs resolving, which there is not, though I feel a little anxious about the row of forsythias between my yard and that of my plant-loving next-door neighbor. Does he know where the lot line is? Does he understand that those plants are almost entirely in my yard? (My father would have been extremely careful to plant them so that not more than the tips of branches would intrude into the neighbor’s yard.) 

I see my neighbor has been doing some pruning on his side. However, I think that kind of tidying up is reasonable and also, those plants are very wide. I don’t think he is ambitious enough to prune so much that I would perceive any diminution from my side. I noticed an interloping plant in the forsythia right near the sidewalk, probably technically in my neighbor’s yard, but I saw his car was not in his driveway, so I went and got the snippers and clipped it near the ground.

A while back, I met with someone from the renovations place to discuss building a “cat lock” (so called by my sister) or a “screen porch” (so called by myself) or a “vestibule” (so called by the renovations place) outside the front door. This extremely friendly and personable young man said I would have two handymen on the premises for two days to build the screen porch, replace a storm door, replace the door to the hallway with one with glass panes in it, and install new closet doors in my mother’s bedroom, a new door to the TV room, and a door for the laundry room in the basement. Later I asked if a second storm door could also be replaced.

The work was due to begin last Friday, but got pushed to Monday, which was fine. Last Wednesday, I received a scope of work document that needed some corrections. I was unable to connect with anyone about that last week, so when Monday rolled around, the document was still in a pending status. In addition, several inquiries on my part about the stain to be used on two doors had never received any response, so I had no idea if we had all the right stuff coming and if we were all on the same page or what. Not my favorite feeling.

I called on Monday morning about the stain and the scope of work document. My project manager was out of the office, but they said they would send another project manager over to do a walkthrough with the person who would actually be doing the work. The two handymen had ended up being one handyman, and on Monday, that one handyman said he is juggling ten projects (which made me a little nervous about accurate counting of the time I’m paying for, but I decided not to obsess about it). That one handyman also seemed to be quite unaware of what work needed to be done and what knobs and so forth had been chosen, so the extra walkthrough was very helpful. The project manager who came on Monday was the same person who came over in the first place. I like him very much indeed.

No materials whatsoever were on hand on Monday except for things I’d obtained myself, so after the walkthrough, the carpenter (I think he might mainly be a carpenter) went away to do who knows what, and came back later to spend a couple of hours installing anti-Marvin latches here and there. He put a very sturdy latch on a bathroom cabinet door that proved to be no match for Marvin whatsoever. Fortunately, he had something on his truck that will absolutely keep Marvin from getting into that cabinet, from which he can get into the plumbing and underneath the tub through one of those holes I have so many of. I thought Duckworth spent that whole day hiding under the couch, but then he emerged from underneath the tub, covered with dust.

The carpenter reeked of aftershave to the point that I felt nauseous by the end of the day. I debated whether I should say something or not (“Don’t hassle the fellow” versus “This is your house; you are paying for this work and you have every right to express this”) and finally did say, in as mild a manner as possible, that I am very sensitive to scents, so it would be good if he could go easy on the aftershave. He said he does not wear aftershave at all, but maybe it was his deodorant, which is something-lavender scent. I’m sure that is it. I said I would actually prefer the smell of sweat, though maybe his other clients don’t feel the same way.

As it turned out, he worked outside on Tuesday and also today, but even when I was near him outside, I did not get the slightest whiff of that stuff, so maybe he skipped using it. He is being careful about the cats when he goes in and out. I was stuck inside all day Monday and Tuesday, worried about the cats, but was able to go for a short walk on Tuesday after the carpenter left for the day, which seemed like a huge and wonderful luxury, and then today I went out back while he was here and fiddled with my mulch and ivy. It was a lovely day today.

Yesterday materials for the screen porch were due to be delivered between 6 and 10 a.m. I didn’t see any sign of anything arriving, but it’s because what was supposed to be a big pile of stuff was just four two-by-fours, placed right alongside the house, a comical sight when the carpenter showed it to me: that’s it? However, he could use those for framing the screen porch, so he started doing that. Various questions and problems arose regarding fixtures, but I had assumed there would be endless complications with every aspect of this, and so was not perturbed; the carpenter worked through each issue methodically. He is a lovely man, very calm.

Yesterday afternoon some absolutely dreadful-looking engineered wood arrived, meant for the screen porch. This stuff was really ugly; plus I have said about ten times that I don’t want engineered wood. Fortunately, it also struck the carpenter as beyond the pale, and he hopped in his truck to go find something else. What he came back with was exactly what I’d had in mind all along. Thank goodness he is the one doing the work. He made good progress yesterday and today. I am extremely pleased with how it looks so far. He is doing a wonderful job. (Plus, my sister said more than once that I was going to have to aggressively prune an evergreen just outside the new porch, but I can see that I will not have to touch it at all.)

The various doors that were ordered two weeks ago have disappeared, electronically speaking. They were supposedly pre-hung doors, but all magically transformed back into slabs somewhere along the way (a slab being just the door itself without the frame or hinges) and anyway are absent without official leave, so once the porch is done, we’ll have to wait for the doors to turn up.