Photo by Jessica Walliser My gardener friend is keeping backyard bees and has inspired me to do it myself one day. |
I visited a friend’s house today for a little garden tour and a lunch date. I love to see other people’s gardens and find out what they have going on.
I feel good about checking out a friend’s garden when we grow on or about the same level—meaning that neither of us cares too much about too many weeds or about the lawn not being mowed or about a long list of things that need to be done. I have a harder time visiting the garden of a friend (or a stranger) whose garden always looks perfect. It’s kind of depressing knowing that your place will never look as good, or worse still, always wondering what they are thinking when they drop by your place and see all the dandelions in full bloom. My friend certainly has his share of weeds; me too.
One thing he had in his garden that was pretty exciting was a bee hive. A community organization in Pittsburgh called Burgh Bees set up his hive and maintains it, eventually teaching him how and turning over the reigns after a few years. Watching all those bees busy at work on a sunny day was pretty cool. The funny thing is that I didn’t even notice it in the corner of his veggie garden until after he pointed it out. Someday maybe he’ll teach me how and my husband and I can have a hive of our own, too.
In the meantime, work has halted on our backyard renovation due to the massive amounts of rain we’ve experienced in the past few weeks. I guess it’s hard to grade and install a French drain when the ground is completely saturated. We’re crossing our fingers for a drier week so they can get the skid steer in here and gussy it up for us. In the meantime the yard’s a mud pit.
