Work day

"The laborer is worthy of his hire."

Reciting this verse was a family tradition when our sons were younger. It usually meant going out for lunch as a reward for spending a Saturday morning doing household chores. At some point, when we felt we'd done enough, and were getting hungry and tired, someone would quote the passage, and that was the signal that it was quitting time.

I thought about this today, as we spent most of the day working in the garden. It was a lovely day to do so, with near-perfect temperatures, and we got quite a bit done. Most of what we're doing now involves getting the raised beds ready for spring planting- weeding, leveling, and checking the drip irrigation. Here's what we accomplished today:

1.Added a layer of retaining-wall bricks to one of our raised beds,
2. Improved the berm around a pear tree and mulched it as well as the two new ones.
3. Transplanted a plumbago to a different location. When we originally created the raised beds, we planned to grow trees, shrubs, and flowers in them. They've since morphed into vegetable-growing areas, and the shrubs are really in the way.
4.Cut back all the cattails in the pond. Besides containing a lot of brown spikes that needed to be removed, there are way too many of them and they are crowding out the water lilies. (And the water lilies are sending out shoots already!)
5. Created a decorative pattern on a block wall with the smaller recycled pieces of an old metal gazebo.
6. Harvested the last of the broccoli and removed the plants.
7. Cut down the remains of an orchid tree that fell victim to a combination of a drip irrigation malfunction and last summer's intense heat.

We don't need to motivate ourselves to work in the garden with an external reward. Enjoying the beauty our labors create is reward enough. But we'll probably go out to dinner anyway!