Big push in the yard today. I finished digging a couple of raised beds and planted peppers and tomatoes. This is with the mackerel in the hole before the bedding plant is put in place. There are more plants to put in the ground and more beds to dig, but I'm making progress and so far haven't had to hire anyone to do it for me, like last year.

I cut deadwood out of a rosemary in the back yard and ran all of those stems through the chipper. It added up to about a bin and a half (the bin is a ~20 gallon pail for mixing mud or paint left behind by my contractor). This was enough to almost cover a small bed in the front yard where I'm encouraging thyme to spread out as a groundcover in the space. Right now it has small thyme and onions (because why waste open garden when it isn't covered with herbs yet?) The chipper isn't speedy, but all things considered, it does what I need. I usually would have to send the rosemary branches to the landfill because they are too woody for the compost and then I'd have had to drive to Home Depot to buy a bag of mulch for that bed. The time it took to chip the limbs are probably about the same for a round-trip to Home Depot.

I haven't forgotten the fitness side of things - as it gets warmer it gets easier to do the alternate day fasting and these days I notice that my trousers aren't as snug as over the winter. I'll get to a point where I feel like I'm back to my low weight from last fall and I'll step on the scale again. No point in getting depressed by the dial on the scale until then.

SRS