Out, out, damned fern...
Still moochy. So I need to keep my mind and body fully occupied and challenged. Have played Bach on the piano, and am about to relaunch self into the water race. Today's challenge - the removal of yet more annoying clumps of ferns. The biggest and oldest ones. Scary...
Bugle Blues
When it's all over for the day, I will burn all the mess. Will also throw my moochy blues onto the bonfire and watch them go up in smoke and flames. Will shower, wash my hair and put on my new frilly pea-green shirt. Will feel beautiful (may not look it, hee hee).
Abandoned Nest
Later, mid-afternoon...
Hard work - I eventually got the clump of grass out, and I've carted all my water race mess to the bonfire. Sadly, found a birds nest in a Myrtle tree-shrub with three blue eggs in it and no sign of a bird. Quite possibly a casualty of my sawing and axing underneath. Crept back a little later to check, no sign of a returned bird. Sorry about that.
So the plan now is to continue upstream, though I've arrived at a fern with a huge root - this may need the chain-saw. On go the waders (wonderful garden accessory, these). Back soon, but not too soon.
Much later...
Dug and sliced out another two barrow loads of dead ferns. Am I getting sick of this activity? Yes, a little. But there is one saving grace - standing in the water (waders on) the ferns are at an easy height. This fern-slicing obsession is all very well, but if I want to enjoy masses of summer colour and yummy vegetables then I must keep up my glass-house work. As well as my weeding, and watering, and clearing paths, and planting out. Might be time to hire that under-gardener I've been promising myself!
The Water Race
The bonfire is gurgling happily, burning all my ferny mess. And the last of the hedge trimmings from the orchard are on it. Phew! That's taken absolutely ages (the hedge was trimmed over four months ago). Not so many ferns to go now. To be fair, it's years since I did one of these robust water race clean-ups. Thought - they'd be easier if I did them every year...