Spring Cleaning

Spring cleaning never happened last year.  There were lots of reasons.

ONE: Timing.  We left for the USofA near the end of April for a rather lengthy trip.  And March and April were not spring-y last year - it was cold and wet and unpleasant.  I clearly remember putting geraniums in the window boxes the day before we left hoping they would survive.

TWO:  Timing.  What a wretched spring and pretty awful summer.  We got back to Bremen with Dylan, did what we could about little outings and such, but again, not good weather.  And of course, there was no time to do work in the garden/yard.

THREE:  Timing.  Dylan was here about two weeks, then I was back in the US for a week and then I got back and the weather was still awful and there were two hundred other things to do and the summer was about over.  So, no real yard work.

Conclusion:  a whole season of not doing stuff.  Therefore, more to do the next year.

And here we are in next year.

We've done a couple of things:  the tree is trimmed, the climbing rose cut back, a few things have been repotted.  But now begins the w o r k.

Clean out the moss from between the cobblestones. On the left, cleaned out.  On the right, not so much.

I do love the cobblestones in the front of our house, but they cannot be ignored.  There was a point when I thought moss was a lovely counterpoint to the stone, but I have discovered that the moss doesn't stop with between the stone - it just keeps going.  So it has to go.

We don't do chemicals here.  Big No-No.  And actually I tried - I sprayed vinegar on a couple of spots and found it was very effective, but it still meant scraping and digging to get out the dead stuff.  Might as well eliminate the extra step.

Tools.

 The two most important are the stool and the knife blade.  The stool is home-made, bought from a "estate" sale from an old farm house, clearly home made, incredibly stable.  Cost about $1.00.  And I love it.

The second most important tool is the knife blade from a broken table knife that Werner gave a padded handle to that works like a charm.  Really, who needs fancy when you have workable?

Here's a small part that's done.  That took about 3 hours. Still working on the front, and there are hours and hours to go, but there's sun outside, the winds are gentle and warm and next week Werner's going to repaint the fence so it is shiny white.