I was gardening

[mellowtigger]

I made my weekly run to the grocery store this morning, then I spent a few hours outdoors in my back yard. I made the mistake of growing crown vetch back there a few years ago, and now I need to eliminate the hugely invasive plant. The bees love the stuff, but it's overcrowding and killing everything else around it that's less than waist high, so it needs to go. I have other things the bees love that can take its place. Unfortunately, it's not exactly easy to remove, because it has roots that run elsewhere.

I also started burning some old wood. The "weeds" that went to seed last fall, for instance, they went up in smoke so they don't germinate this spring. Again, I have other things the pollinators like that will take their place. Plants that won't take advantage of my mammal heritage and cling painfully to my body hair with their seeds.

Then there were sirens. Lots of sirens. And more sirens. Then some more. Then the airplane started circling. Here's the screenshot at the moment, as of 3:30pm Central. My house is practically at the center of the loop, so I figured something bad must have happened extremely close. I searched online and found this post, describing what happened 3 streets (1.5 blocks) west of me. Somebody robbed the gas station at gunpoint then entered a house nearby.

I put away my gardening things and locked the doors. It's time to play some Stardew Valley on the Steam Deck and drink a nice apple cider while pretending the rest of humanity doesn't exist.

I'll get back to gardening tomorrow.

Comments

[brian_bogue]

that's perfectly understandable

[mellowtigger]

That's how I spent the evening, and I slept fine afterwards. :) Upon looking more thoroughly online this morning, I misinterpreted some of the location information. The shooting was at the gas station on Broadway, the one I've written about before, where I ducked down in my car once to avoid gunfire. The shooter then ran over to my area (near another gas station close to my house), where they were caught and arrested in the alley, according to a comment on this post. That's in addition to other shootings several blocks farther away southwest, northwest, and northeast of me. I guess the warm weather has brought the hot tempers too.

[rebeccmeister]

Oof, and ugh, but hooray for garden time!

[mellowtigger]

I got a few more hours in today. I'm definitely out of shape. :) But I got some more blackberries transplanted, some seeds into flats, and a lot of random vines dug up and laid out to dry/die.

[wispywillow]

I have several invasive plants that my brother planted years ago--bamboo and English ivy--that I need to tackle again. And there's a large patch of creeping myrtle in the woods behind my house that started as a tiny patch (I don't know where it came from) when I was a young child. If I knew then what I know now, I would have pulled it up when it was still manageable. At least the myrtle is pretty, but still.

Yikes, good reasons to stay inside!

[mellowtigger]

I've got what I think is creeping charlie on the north side of my house. It seemed nice when I first noticed it there with its very low growth and pretty purple flowers... until I realized it was killing everything in its path. Now, I'm on a slow quest to remove it so the other shade plants can take over that small patch in the deep shadow of my house.