Weeding

Spring is here, I think. Or maybe it's more accurate to say that winter is here, but springlike things happen during the winter in Ridgecrest. We have had some rain, so weeds are sprouting.

Last year, soon after we moved into this house, we had a lot of rain and the backyard exploded with very attractive flowering plants -- which turned out, unfortunately, to be weeds. We ended up paying a guy hundreds of dollars to remove them. This year I'm thinking I should get a jump on the weeds, so the babies and I have started working on them. On days when I don't have the energy to go for a long walk, I still enjoy getting outside in the garden, and sometimes I think the babies like that better than a stroller ride.

This morning we all put on our shoes and socks and sweatshirts and went outside to weed. I brought the long dandelion digger but also wore gloves, because I mainly pull weeds by hand. Baby A began pushing his little grocery cart around the yard. Baby B started pulling up all the garden lights. "No, no!" I shouted. This was ignored. I pulled some weeds and put them in the little garbage can that I'd dragged out with me. Baby B spotted Whiskers the cat on the patio and ran over to pull her tail. Baby A began to scream because one set of wheels had come off the grocery cart. I set down the dandelion digger and went to fix the grocery cart. Once it was fixed I looked up to see Baby A running along the side of the house carrying the dandelion digger. I ran after him and retrieved it. Went back to weeding.

Our big cat, Pie Bear, likes to lie in one very large patch of weeds. He is so big that he flattens the weeds, like a deer nest. I decided it was time to get rid of the deer nest, so I began pulling up those weeds. As I worked, I heard the babies yelling and looked across the yard to see them pointing up at a tree. I supposed it was a bird until I saw a long tail -- it was Whiskers! Somehow she had climbed the tree, probably to get away from the babies.

When the little garbage can was full, I dumped it into the big garbage can near the back gate. I decided we had done enough weeding for the day, so we went inside to have a snack.