Today is the first day of my "vacation", and therefore the first day I've been able to do anything reasonable in the garden. Of course, it's January -- but there's still a lot of work to do.

Most of it hard.

Anyway, so today I got up bright and early at noon and headed out into the back yard to tackle the sad landscaping. Erik had taken out the stand of small trees a while ago, so I was not at ALL prepared to discover that they weren't trees at all. It's some sort of terrible plant which sends a 1"-4" diameter root about 6" under the soil, and then sends up things that look like alder seedlings. Now, you have to understand that I'm in exactly as good shape as you would guess, given my occupation of Software Engineer, so this is far from fun, although it is surprisingly satisfying to see the chunks of roots come out of the ground.

I also added Compost Enhancer to my compost bin. We filled the compost bin in October with fallen leaves and weeds I pulled up in a fit of inspiration, but then it immediately got cold, so I have this big box of wet moldering leaves and rotting kitchen scraps (don't you compost your kitchen scraps? Shame on you) sitting in my back yard. Hopefully the compost enhancer stuff will turn it into compost before the end of Spring.

In between gasping for breath from uprooting Terrible Plants and gasping for breath trying to turn a huge pile of sodden leaves, I pruned a shrub that desperately needs pruning. Now, I don't really know how to prune shrubs, so I am following this simple rule: