Mark My Words

We have a number of garden knickknacks scattered around the yard. Odd little things, like aliens and Sasquatch.

And also, this guy.

When Tara came home one day with a garden gnome, I didn’t even bat an eye. Gnomes are kinda cool. This one isn’t even our first. We placed it in the backyard, overlooking the lower pond, and never gave it much thought. Until one day when my dear wife came inside after watering her plants and said, “Babe, we have a problem.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“There’s a Ku Klux Klansman in the backyard.”

At this point I was super confused (and also, really pissed, ’cause, get the hell out of our yard, you racist piece of shit). Wisconsin might not be as liberal as the West Coast, but we’re hardly the Deep South, either.

Tara went on to explain. “I was walking past the pond, and the plants are so full, all I could see was this tall, pointy white hat standing out among all the green, and…well…it kinda reminds me of a Klan robe.”

Well, crap.

Ever since that offhand remark, all I can see is a KKK dude. It’s quite unsettling. How creepy does this look, the way he’s staring at my mom like that? Diabolically plotting something. And I will pretend not to notice the torch practically within arm’s reach.

Thank god he’s in the backyard, tucked away beneath a spruce now, ’cause I’d have a heart attack if a neighbor walked by and got the wrong idea.

“We need to paint the hat,” I said.
“Blue’s a good color,” Tara replied.
“I’m down for blue,” I said. “Better to be mistaken for a Smurf than a white supremacist.”

We’ll be swinging by Menard’s this week for that can of paint.

On a lighter note, and speaking of the lower pond, remember my project to dig up all the wild ginger, dead nettle, and lily of the valley above it? To uncover all the hidden rocks and plant things that won’t try to take over the entire yard instead. We’re also going to reroute the waterfall so it goes all the way down and underneath the bridge. Well, it seemed like a pretty big task when I first started, but progress has been made.

Now, it’s not going to be complete until next year–after everything unwanted is dug up (mostly by hand, with the help of a very trusty weeding tool I picked up recently), we’re going to cover it with black plastic until next spring, to smother as much new growth as we can–I’m happy with how quickly, if not effortlessly, things are coming along.

Yesterday, I wore my new mosquito suit while working on this (what a weird sentence to type), and I’m happy to report, it worked like a charm. It was a little scary at first, ’cause there was a constant buzzing, swarms of mosquitoes dive-bombing my face. But they were unable to breach the mesh netting, and I ended up blissfully bite-free. Bijoux asked, Weren’t you sweating to death in the get up?? It was admittedly a little toasty, but then again, the temperature was in the low 80s at the time. How much cooler I would have been without wearing this stuff is hard to say, but I think the trade-off–no itchy bites–is worth a little perspiration.

Speaking of perspiring, it’s going to be a hot one this week. Heat wave 2.0 is looming. And since we’re in peak growing season, the corn sweat is boosting our dew points a few degrees. Hot and muggy is the name of the game, folks.

On the positive side, that was one hell of a segue, huh?

Do you own any problematic yard art? Tackling any big summer projects?