Sunday dawned clear and warm this past weekend. I wrapped up some work on the computer and then suited up to get out in the yard, since I had told myself all of the baby plants that had been sprouted, rooted and potted needed to be planted before I left on vacation. Since I was going to be gone Monday night and get home at about midnight on Tuesday, it had to be done on Sunday. Friday night I got out and planted some sunflowers and pumpkins, and they were looking kind of peaked after the cool weather on Saturday.

I invented a potting table out of two sawhorses and a door from the closet in the craft room. The sliding doors don’t work when you have the closet crammed full of fabric and yarn, so they are living in the shed.

Yeah, that door is going to need to be re-painted before we put it back on. But that is going to be a while, unless we win the lottery and move out of the house. And if we win the lottery, I will hire someone to paint the door.

I potted all of the climbing things – morning glories, cypress vines, and some sweet peas that I somehow missed when I planted earlier in the week. I pointed out to Ken that I was going to be putting the climbing plants in place, and that meant they needed lattice to climb, and we had torn down one segment of the old lattice with the aim of replacing it, and hadn’t done the replacing yet.

He went off to Home Depot to get lattice, and worked on that while I planted, alternating with weeding, finding a few volunteer cilantro plants, which made me happy. I started converting at least part of the garden to an herb garden, moving the horse radish from the railroad tie planter where it was not thriving, and moving some chives over as well. I am gradually reducing the area that has to be planted every year, hopefully creating a lower maintenance garden. I did plant a row of lettuce, basil, and cilantro, mixed together, that could be quite interesting. I tried basil in a hanging pot last year and that just didn’t work very well, it dried out too quickly. I also thinned out the onions that returned from last year. I noted that the mint plant, known for spreading and trying to take over, was doing just that, and so I put it in its place. And smelled like mint all afternoon.

I returned to the house around 11:00 a.m. and changed out of the dirty (literally, dirt-y) garden clothes. I had been planning on pizza on the grill for lunch but forgot that the dough needs to raise. So I made the dough anyway and then made hamburgers on the grill for lunch, with baked oven fries. I cut these like french fries instead of wedges, they cook a little faster and they are excellent.

Then back out into the yard – more planting, moving things around, weeding (there is ALWAYS weeding), mulling over what to do in the weed garden. Wrapped up about 3:00 and headed inside to clean up and get some more things done, such get the package ready to mail to my nieces and pack for business travel. And put away all of the summer clothes that I got out of the cedar chest that Ken had washed. I packed for my work trip, and made the grilled pizza for dinner.

I can’t find the link for the grilled pizza, but I will tell you, that is the way to go. Excellent crust. But next time I will remember that the crust only needs 3 minutes on LOW for the initial bake, not 3 minutes on HIGH. That first one was a little crispy. You stretch out the dough, and grill it on one side, and then bring it inside, and put the toppings on that side, and return it to the grill so the other side gets done and the toppings get melted together. I am considering trying grilling the first side, then putting the toppings on, and finishing it in the oven on my pizza stone under the broiler, because the grill doesn’t really brown the top. Another idea to try.

I was totally wiped out at the end of the day and I still forgot about three things I needed to do, had to get up out of bed and email a list of things to myself so I would remember to do them later.

If I got as much done every weekend as I did this weekend, I would get a lot done. I also would be crabby and exhausted, I am sure. Can’t wait for vacation.