#62.20 - Wowzers...

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Gardening is hard work. My arms and legs are so so sore. But a good sore. I'm hoping to do an hour when I get back today from school. Continue clearing the back. The garden is looking great. It is so satisfying. Gardening should be about doing the least amount of work and things looking fantastic. This is because when we do the least about of work, the garden has the least impact. And this is good for the animals. I think the days of gardening on steroids is over. The high maintenance garden. It has, it must, now all be about recognising that the garden is a shared space - and not just shared with the humans, but also the animals.

So, for example, I left the beech mast on the ground all of winter for the wood pigeons to feast on. We often came home to find a pair pecking away at the rich harvest.

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This made the house look quite messy, but it was for the birds. 

Then as I cleared it, I saw lots of skates and bugs. This would be good for other birds so I piled the leaves and mast away to the side of the garden and under the hedges for birds to look for the bugs instead of putting it into the brown bin, which is what I started to do for convenience then stopped. I just couldn't make myself do it. So I carried the piles of mast or swept them into the sides, the hedges.

That was the main work - that and clearing dead vines. I emptied out or rescued or binned containers, then I brought the bins in from on top of the crocuses, where they were sitting. What I loved was the way I had all the tools to do all the work - except a shovel, I didn't have a shovel. No matter, I had all the other tools. And I knew how to use them. Previously I would stand in the garden centre and wonder what each tool was for. Now I know. If you were a badger, you'd have claws, but sadly, I am no badger.

Then I began working on the back. The back was considerably more complicated. So I began the way I always begin on complicated places. I start on one side and continue round. That is how I began.The colstfoot were already coming. Dandelions of course. It is amazing how our attitude to these plants has altered over the years. I have always loved dandelions. Always. And now I have a reason to love them all over again. It will probably take the entire week of one hour to get the back tidied. Which is as it should be. But it is sooooo satisfying. I brushed, and emptied, and scraped, and threw and sorted and now it looks amazing ... well a small corner looks amazing. The best part of all this is that everything now it not guess work. When you are doing something that you know about it is never guess work.

Right everyone has managed to wake up now and I must go. The start of school.

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