Pickin' up Sticks

Like I've mentioned a time or two, we've had a long, cold, wet winter, and I've spent most of my time inside.  Mother Nature, however, has been busy, and my yard was littered with branches from all the windy days.  After going for a nice walk yesterday, and doing my Zumba class today, I felt energized...no that's not quite true for I have muscles which have lain dormant lo these many months and are now feeling the strain of yesterday's uphill climb.  Anyway, if not energized, I was at least motivated by the warm weather to get out and finally do something about the mess that is my front yard.

I have big trash barrels I use to collect my sticks.  I tote these around the yard and then dump them in my yard waste cart the city collects every week.  I donned my sunglasses and work gloves and trotted on out to get started.  I grabbed a barrel, and as I pulled it back I saw possibly the biggest bunny ever spotted in our yard, a very dead bunny at that.  This is what we would call a mega bunny.  Yes, we have size descriptors for the rabbits around here.  The big ones are mega bunnies, the normal size adults are just bunnies, the half-grown offspring are mini bunnies and the babies are micro bunnies.  It's not often that I put our weirdness out for public display, but there you have it.

Back to my situation at hand.  I grabbed a shovel and scooped up the deceased and after having him (or her) fall off I scooped him up again (we'll just assume it's a him) and toted him, carefully perched on the shovel, around the house, down the driveway and deposited him in the woods on a bed of ivy to return to nature.  I hate to find dead critters in the yard.  There was this turkey vulture...but that's another story.

After caring for the dearly departed, I got on with trudging around the yard with my barrel, picking up stick after stick, feeling every step.  I piled all the big branches at the street, and put out my cart.  It was a beautiful day and great to be outdoors even with the pain in my shins.

This is a winter's worth of branches, and just from the front yard.

This Camillia is on the south side of the house right by my kitchen window.  It is huge and in desparate need of pruning. It usually blooms in mid to late February, but had a couple of blooms around Christmas.