View from a swing

View from my backyard swing

I feel like shaken Jell-O. I finally tried out my new rototiller today, and of course overdid it.

A woman and her power tools.

The soil at the back of the house has gradually been compacted over an unknown period of time due to the downspout falling off and allowing water to flood down our foundation, instead of to the sump pump. And I want to put the vegatable garden there.

It took around 2 hours of hanging onto the rototiller to scrape up approximately 15 feet X 7 feet X 4 inches of soil. And that's only half done. I should really dig down another 4 inches...but when my arms stop throbbing.

After dinner, I corralled all of us out to the back yard so I could sit and admire my work. The girls were intent on getting muddy again, and I was not in the mood to give them a THIRD bath of the day, so Geoff took them in for bedtime snack, which left me...just me...ahhh.

I was in a perfectly Zen-like zone when the brat two doors down fired up his motorbike and started fuming up the neighborhood. I tried to ignore him and suddenly was graced by the presence of our red-tailed hawk wheeling over the top of our house. Sigh...perfect.

The swing's creak, the wind making the grass whisper, the chip chip chip of the macho cardinals.

Made me forget about my arms.

Thank goodness for spring.