We had a gorgeous day with plenty of sun and the temperature in the mid fifties.  I dug out my leather work gloves—oops, going to need to shop for new ones, mine are full of holes.  Oh well, I tugged them on anyway and began the slow process of cleaning out the garden beds.  I cleared over half of the pond garden, backwashed the filter, and added some fresh water to the pond.  After three hours of work, I took a short break and brought the dogs out for a romp.

     I didn’t do much work on the side garden today since we do have a little bit of snow left in there.  However, I did drag out the rake and cleaned up many of the seed pods from the sweet gum tree.  At least those that were in the grass.  They look like teensy hedge hogs.  I did an hour of the rake, stoop, and pick up dance.  I have a ton of those seed pods in the side garden I need to remove yet but I’ll do that another day.  It was more important to get the ones up from where we walk.  Those suckers hurt when you step on them, even the dogs hate them. 

     I hauled a garbage can outside the fence and began to clean up after the slobs who litter around here.  I swept up glass, picked up paper litter, plastic cups, and bags, filling a large dog food bag with the detritus from the litterbugs.  That alone took me two hours.  Yes, a whole two hours wasted cleaning up other people’s garbage.

     Where was DH?  He was keeping the dogs company watching the TV.  It was a darned shame too, because he missed seeing the Downy Woodpecker feeding on the suet, the Cardinals taking a bath in the top of the waterfall, and the Black-capped Chickadees watching me from the fence.