ragdall, I had a seed-paved area that was tilled in in the spot where my garden is now, so I'm regularly pulling up weeds that would, if left alone, generate lots of seed. I did leave a few sunflowers around the garden, and the plants are lovely (no heads on them yet). I moved the bird feeder posts and set up the feeders themselves again for a while. The birds were attacking my strawberries, but given seed, they go there first. But now the feeders are on a lawn area, so I'm sure that turf will be full of weeds soon. I don't intend to leave these feeders up long, maybe a week, and then I'll phase them out again.

I spent an hour this morning cleaning up the potted area next to my side door, under the bay window. It was full of leaves and drifts of plastic and this year lots of crumbled terracotta pots (the freeze and the snow last winter nailed them). I emptied pots with old dirt and nothing growing, along with some of the leaf litter, and moved a few things. I didn't clean it completely because there is a lot of wildlife, lizards and toads, mostly, who love that area and need the cover. It's all standing on the old concrete driveway. I built a small temporary wall that most of the pots sit behind, and that shades the pots some (the sun here is brutal on potted plants).

The next door neighbor is having the garden club over to her house for lunch tomorrow, and I'll never have it up to immaculate standards (and they're not fussy, they won't say anything about my mix of stuff here), but I figured that since she had her yard guy cleaning yesterday, I ought to spend a little time working on my leaf litter as well.

I think what Susan is aiming at with the dog run and seating areas on that back porch is where I would like to go with all of my doorways--not dog runs, mind you, but covered seating areas. An extension of the house outward, a "garden room" as one of the television gardeners calls it. Shade, seating, landscaping, and cool breezes. I'm not there yet in any direction, but I'm examining my options as far as preparing the spaces for that use.

Looks like rain later this week. I have plenty to do indoors still, and I could do more cleaning in the garage. Last weekend I organized some of my gardening stuff, and made use of a large empty plastic bin to store soil amendment stuff. Now that we're into the hot season again (93 today) I have the side door propped open with bricks so the dogs get some cross ventilation if they spend time in their stall. I have to make sure there isn't stuff that will blow out of the garage when I open the big door and create a little whirlwind of air in there. I pick up enough of the neighbor's trash blowing around, I don't need to add my own to it.

SRS