Mulch

Our weekend can pretty much be summarized in one word: mulch.

My father and Josh and I spread mulch all day Saturday. We spread it around trees, front, back and side, we spread it around bushes, front, back and side, we spread it alongside the house, front, back and side, and we spread it along the entire length of the back yard fence. We used so much mulch that we had to make five trips to the garden center before we had all the mulch we needed. One or two or three of us spread mulch from 8:00 a.m. until 6:30 p.m. When we were not spreading mulch, we were pruning bushes and pruning trees, and fertilizing the grass.

Of course, we got frightfully dirty, so dirty that we had to eat lunch Saturday on the back deck, since my mother would not allow my father or Josh or me into the house.

Yesterday morning, before the mulch festivities began, my father and Josh and I rose very early, and we went out to eat breakfast at a Bob Evans, after which we made our first of five trips to the garden center. When my brothers and I were kids, my Dad would often take us to a Bob Evans for breakfast on Saturday mornings, in order that my mother not have to concern herself with preparing breakfast on those Saturdays. Ever since, I have always been fond of going to a Bob Evans for breakfast, especially on a Saturday in which there is work to be done. When I go there, I always order bacon and eggs, AND pancakes, and that is what I ordered yesterday morning, and so did Josh, and so did my Dad. I think that all three of us were determined to get meaningful cholesterol injections into our systems before we began our yard work.

Last evening, when the yard work was finally done, we were so dirty that my mother made us clean up in the basement bathroom--she was not going to allow us, she said, to track dirt into her house. She rewarded us, however, with a very nice dinner: beef tenderloin, with a special potato dish made with cream and chives, fresh green beans, sweet corn and a tomato-cucumber salad. For dessert, she had made for us an apple pie.

It was after 9:00 p.m. by the time we were done eating dinner, and we were tired, and we went to bed not too long after.

Today, after church, my father and Josh and I washed windows for my mother. My father washed windows on the inside, and Josh and I washed windows on the outside. It took us all afternoon. There were other projects around the house we had planned on doing this weekend, but we ran out of time and we will have to do those on some future weekend.

When we were done washing windows, we had an early and light dinner, and then Josh and I came home.

I am scheduled to go to Baltimore this week, for two days, to assist at depositions, but the depositions have been scheduled and postponed two times before, and the lead attorney on the case has told me not to be surprised if the depositions are postponed, at short notice, for a third time.

I would be happy not to go to Baltimore. There is one place, however, where I have a hankering to go--I have a hankering to go to Denver, to visit my middle brother. I have not been to Denver to visit him there since the summer of 2005, and Josh has never been to my brother's place in Denver. Josh and I want to go soon, and my brother wants us to come. It seems difficult, however, to schedule a time, as we always seem to be so busy.