Tightening the border.

I know, I started painting the fence, a long overdue project, and the family worked on it most of the day on Saturday, gettting a lot accomplished, but today, it is wet and windy, and not a good day to paint. I know, I started the demolition of the stalls, and it is now time to figure out how to fix the suckers, but I am having a hard time with some of the physical aspects of the project, somehow it just seems like a two man job, and these days, I find myself to be a one-man woman. But, I would like something to improve around here and recreating the sign doesn't seem to be a spur-of -the-moment project. There are no shortage of those, so I chose to tackle the border garden. Border Garden. Sounds so, well, tidy. It borders something, and must be garden-y.
In reality, it borders the corn field, and like so many things I create- my gardens could keep a full time gardener quite busy. One garden I might manage. But I have more than several. I could spend my days on the gardens and they would be spectacular. But, some would call it ADD, I can't just garden. I can't just have a pretty house, or a tolerant husband, or three kids, or a job, or a barn full of chickens, or several horses to condition and train, or a blog replete with deep thoughts. Nope. It's like I've got to cram several lifetimes into one, as I know I only get this chance to try it all. So, I plant gardens, and I grow spectacular weeds.
I am not a patient gardener. I don't plant for the long term. I like gardens bursting and blowsy. From the day I plant them. This is impractical, but still, I always overplant. This wasn't much of a problem for many years. We moved around so much that a garden I planted would barely have time to get started and mature before we moved on. But, we've been at Cowfeathers a for 8 years now, and I'm beginning to see why you plant with a long term plan. Although, knowledge of what should be rarely affects my decision making. I plant and then figure I'll deal with moving the beasts down the road. And, mostly, I do. One of the things I will try to remember in the future is, as much as I love them, roses in the the gardens make for terrible weeding. My fingers and palms are full of little lacerations and embedded thorns, because I always grab down in deep and hope for the best, and with all the roses mixed in with the rest, my hopes are often dashed.

When a weed gets to a certain size, say, about 4', I am tempted to call it a foundation planting and admire it for its hardiness.

Here is Julia, helping me garden. She is passing by the weed bucket, which by this point in the border weighs about 70 lbs. How can crabgrass, creeping charlie and cat mint get so heavy?

There is a large muck bucket under this overgrown muppet of a weed pile.

Going after this dandelion and the awful choke vine... thorns everywhere.

Believe it or not, this mess is hiding one of my little topiaries. I have topiaries I've been working on distributed throughout the border garden. It started when I had 27 boxwoods in my knot garden that I had to dig up and move for the foundation of the mudroom. I didn't have anywhere else for a knot garden at the time, so I planted the boxwoods in many locations, including the future location of the border garden.

The compost pile gets a lot of action.

Here is my little hen topiary, uncovered at last.

She wears a flower in her comb.

And, YIKES! the irises haven't been cut back yet. I KNOW MOM.....terrible neglect.

And, yes, the iris clippings go in the trash, not the compost.

The weeded section of the border garden.

The still-needing-weeding side of the border garden.

Weeding brings the hens a running. They then dig in the garden, moving mulch to the side and baring the fertile soil for the next crop of weeds. Thank you Birdie.