EDITING

Warm days are starting to pile up and with that increase in temperature the plants are responding quickly.  Not just the plants that I want in the garden, but the unwelcome intruders as well.  The yearly ritual of yanking these uninvited guests out of the soil and carting them off to a place where their seeds will not add to next years stock is in high gear.  I have to admit, I do love these first days being out on the ground cleaning the soil.  There is so much to see and hear.
The birds are really active now, the swallows and blue birds are racing against their biological clocks to get the job done.  Nests must be built, territories established and eggs need producing.  They all swoop and dive in and out of the trees, hyperactive and chatty.
Down on the ground as I move along, pulling, and discarding, there is the pleasure of finding the green of one of my favorite plants beginning to poke up through the soil, or the joy of seeing infantile buds beginning to take form.  Satisfying, that yet again the renewal is going according to schedule,  unhappy that perhaps some did not survive.  There is always the internal dialog that goes on. "Oh, yes the Peruvian Lilly I transplanted two years ago is  ready to start blooming again" or "I doubt that Salvia 'red neck girl' survived, what a pity".  I start to catalog and make lists, in my head, of what needs to be transplanted, replaced, what new beauties will I bring into the sanctuary, what needs to be remove to regain balance.  It is so exciting to think about all of this, with sun beaming, sky blue and the smell of soil, oregano, thyme. lavendar  and artemisia diffusing in the air around me.
Parker is huddled far to long over there by brown dry grass clumps, what is he up to,  let me see, oh yes a little garden snake,  how fun for him, not so much for the snake.  I pick the light green spotted snake up, most likely a common garter, distract the pup and then guide the slithering 2 foot rope into a thicket of much denser grass cover.  Game over.