I feel like I accomplished a lot today, but I am extremely wiped out.

My Guatemalan guy who was here 2 weeks ago and who STARTED dismantling my picket fence never called me back to confirm he was coming, and in fact he did not show up. I don't think it was a language thing; I mentioned "lots of digging" and I have a feeling he'd prefer to cut trees down to digging in the dirt.

So I was left to soldier on by myself. I worked on and off in the fenced garden all day, in between taking rest breaks and greeting 4 or 5 different people who showed up to buy plants from me.

I made $100 cash(!) by selling some gooseberry bushes and assorted perennials. One very nice woman works at a certain company I'm familiar with and said she could pass my resume on to her boss, who is looking for writers. I also sold gooseberry plants to no less than 3 people. One guy said he had fond memories of growing gooseberries when he was growing up in Romania. The other guy was a transplant from Ukraine and said gooseberries are hard to find here, so he was excited to see my ad. He was perfectly happy to dig up my big bushes, but as he drove off, he stopped short because the bush had fallen out of his pick-up!

I may give my resume to the woman, just to see if I get an interview, although I would much rather stay at the bank if i get a perm offer since I already know that job pretty well.

So, back to the fenced garden plot, it is so large, about 10 x 25 feet long, that I chose to mentally divide it into thirds, just to make it more imaginable. I was digging out clumps of wild oats, which were hard to dig out, as well as invasive pachysandra and other stuff. At the same time, I was digging up valuable perennials to either move them elsewhere in the yard (more digging to plant them) or putting them in pots in the hopes I could sell some. At the same time, I was also pulling up bricks with my shovel. Years ago I had a brick walkway in there; I started carting the bricks in my wheelbarrow to the driveway; perhaps I can sell them too, cheaply; if not, they'll go the dump.

It just was a ton of work. I can't say I completely cleared the area, but I think if I throw grass seed down and get grass to grow, I can just mow the grass, as well as anything else that manages to still grow there. The idea is not to have a perfect lawn, but to "tame" this land and keep it under control so it doesn't look so unkempt and wild-looking. (Speaking of which, I surprised a garter snake in that area and he slithered on.)

Tomorrow I will mow the back lawn as well as the other 2/3 of this fenced area that I have yet to dig up. I just want to mow it to tame the growth.

I also completely removed the foliage that was shrouding one entry hole of the woodchuck, so I'm hoping this will be enough to finally encourage the animal to find somewhere else to live. Although I don't know where the 2nd entry hole is, exactly. It's usually within 20 feet of the other hole.

So tomorrow I will plant grass seed where I dug. I also want to get the veggie garden going and possibly get a haircut. I have onions to plant too.

Today after digging all day and playing plant lady i ran to Lowes to get the grass seed (and some cilantro and parsley for the garden), filled up the gas tank, bought a tarp to cover my firewood with and got groceries at Trader Joe's.