weather dependent

It was too windy to go on cutting the hedge with the pole mounted chain saw.  And it rained.  I was disappointed, since today was forecast to be nice as recently as yesterday.  Now tomorrow is supposed to be nice, but we'll see, it could be a case of jam tomorrow.  I am worried that there are not going to be enough days before the leaves flush on the trees and the birds start building their nests, when we are both here and the weather is suitable for pole mounted chainsaw work.  The Systems Administrator has come up with a plan for communicating which branches are to be cut, which is for me to equip myself with a very long bamboo cane and point to the ones I want reduced. Maybe if I tied a paintbrush to the end I could leave felling marks for the SA to follow, in case it is lovely chainsaw weather on either of the days next week when I'm going out for the day.

By late morning the showers had passed, and I went out and pruned some of the roses.  The roses at the top of the rose bank don't understand that they are meant to cascade down the bank, and want to grow out over the neighbouring border as well, and it was a fiddly job working out which were which, and reducing the ramblers while freeing the shrub roses they are threatening to overwhelm.  It would have been better to do this a month ago, before the foliage of the Camassia and Aconitum in that bed were so far advanced.

It started to rain again by half past four, and I gave up for the day, before I could tread on anything precious, or stab myself in the eye.  Since it was still office hours I ordered bulk supplies of mulch, which I'm going to need very soon, two bulk bags of washed gravel for the front garden, and fifty large bags of Strulch, which I calculate come to a slightly mind-boggling 7,500 litres.  It would be nice to spread the cost, but Strulch is far cheaper per unit bought in bulk, and the time to mulch is as soon as you've weeded, before the next crop of weeds can grow.  Gravel (I have said this before) does not prevent weeds germinating, in fact, it makes a marvellous seed bed, but it does make them much quicker and easier to pull out.  Strulch cuts down the quantity of annual weeds very considerably, and again, any that do come up are far easier to extract.  All I need to complete the set is to persuade the SA on the next nice day that a morning spent loading mushroom compost on to the truck does not preclude an afternoon session with the pole mounted saw.

Addendum  One of Jeremy Hardy's most disconcerting observations, though completely true, is that cats are all covered in dried spit.  I thought of this as I fastidiously wiped up the spots of dribble the big anxious tabby had left on my chair, sprayed it with Mr Muscle, and dried it.  I will happily let him lie in my lap, and stroke him, but don't want to sit directly in the dribble.  Human beings are irrational creatures.