We’re coming up on Spring

Technically the first day of spring in the Northern Hemisphere is March 20.

That’s the official calendar and Equinox date.

My dog, the trees in the yard, and the flower beds, have a slightly different perspective.

The dog is shedding… A LOT! In the past 2 weeks he’s dropped most of his undercoat.

He’s a husky mix and as near as I can tell he’s got three different layers of fur. The outer coat is longish and seems built to shed snow, water, and ice. The mid coat is pretty dense and looks like it’s built as a wind breaking layer. The under coat is fluffy and reminds me of my down jacket.

That last coat is also prone to static attraction, and flies around the house when I’m running the vacuum. I caught myself chasing little bits of fluff with the vacuum the other day and suddenly understood why the vacuuming chore was taking twice as long as usual.

When he starts shedding the undercoat, he’s also more prone to matting so I’ve been brushing him every other day.

You’d think, “Oh, that’s nice…” You’d be wrong. The dog thinks that brushing is a game. So he plays and spins and tries to keep the brush away.

Admittedly, it’s funny.

What’s not funny is that after the brushing is done. I’m covered head to toe in static charged downey fur and I look a lot like a Yeti. (Brushing is best done outside, prior to a shower, or putting on clean clothes.)

I also try to brush him when there are no breezes. The neighbors probably don’t like clumps of fur the size of small rabbits blowing across their lawns.

Brushing him outside made me notice the large pine trees are greening. There are buds on some of the ground cover plants. As the snow recedes, I’m seeing the work that I’ll have to do in the yard.

I’m seeing greening of the maple in the front yard and sprouts in the flower beds.

If the temps remain warm, I’ve got a plan to fire up the chainsaw and vigorously prune the Apache Plume which has become a little too wild for my tastes. It’s a neat plant but this one has become rather large and threatens to take over the planet.

I need to fence off the vegetable beds. The dog loves digging in the soft soil. That’s great for him, (ahem,) but I want to grow vegetables this year. I don’t want to plant a bunch of vegetables only to have to battle the dog and rabbits. The rabbits are enough of a challenge!

Last year, the vegetable garden wasn’t remotely possible because the dog was new to the household and had no sense of boundaries. I’ve concluded that he still has no sense of boundaries and that a fence will be necessary.

While I’m fencing off the vegetable beds, I’m thinking I’ll fence off the area under the main deck. (Again to keep the dog out of that area. He likes to dig for buried treasure and an unknown number of toys have disappeared into the abyss under that deck.)

The overall plan is to get the spring gardening out of the way, which will make room for my trim and house painting projects.

It’s at these times that I wish I had a pick up truck. I’d like to be able to take cuttings and other stuff to the dump on my schedule instead of stacking it, then borrowing or renting a truck.

There are also a lot of little building projects that I’m thinking about doing.

I’d enjoy doing the projects, but I’m light on tools to accomplish the tasks. I could see myself spending $800 bucks in tools to assemble $150 in projects.

I suppose it really comes down to would I get $800 worth of pleasure and satisfaction out of the work.

Forget the lumber costs! Even decent sawhorses are obscenely expensive these days. Then there’s the issue of being able to store the tools when not in use. The other half also doesn’t much in the way of boundaries in the garage. It’s a royal pain in the butt to climb over all kinds of junk to get to my tools.

I suppose, I can start by cleaning and reorganizing the garage while it’s still too cool to work in the yard. Then I can do the yard work, rent a truck and take all of the crap to the dump. Once that’s done, I can begin the building projects.

It’s a bit like pulling a loose thread on a sweater, one thing leads to another, and another, then before you know it, your sweater is just a pile of yarn.

I’m tired just thinking about it! Oh well, I’ve got a few weeks to think on it.

That compound miter saw looks awfully nice though…