The morning debate: I want to take a shower and my hair really needs to be washed, but I'm going to work in the yard today. Drinking my tea, eating a 1/2 cup of granola with 3/4 cup of whole milk (trying out the trick Charmion mentioned a while back) then heading into the garden. Rain this week is a small help toward conditioning the soil so I can work it. I have some iris to thin and lilies to transplant, and to make room for another couple of plants that are getting big in pots that need to go in the ground.

I'll set the gate and the posts out on the ground and see what hardware I have already (I took apart the fence posts from the stockade fence in the back yard, but some of the gear on the posts is the same as is used for chain link fencing and chain link gates). I may buy a second gate to make it a double gate if I'm sure I can get good hardware to keep it solidly closed when it's locked.

Tomorrow is trash day so it's time to cut down another of the huge native sunflower plants—the whole plant completely fills the tough Rubbermaid trashcan. They're like a small tree at the end of the season. I toss some of these in the back behind the fence, they break down into the duff back there, but as I remove the privet what I need to do is get some better types of trees established and they don't need to be shaded out by sunflowers. While touring the garden of my friends on Friday she remarked that they have some yaupon holly to dig out, pointing at some 12-18" sprouts in the underbrush. I have dibs on them and will go over later in the fall (after the first frost) and dig up several to transplant here. I'll directly transplant most of them but put a couple in pots to keep as backup. Buying trees at the nursery is an expensive move when putting them in an area where I intend to neglect them.