Suddenly summer

Summer has arrived too early this year, before all the spring chores were done - in fact, to be honest, even before my annual Grand List, 'SPRING JOBS', had been drawn up.  This is always subdivided into indoor and outdoor tasks and there is also a third column of things that are to happen off-site - like shopping, visiting or attending appointments.

I'm a great list maker: I knock one out every morning over breakfast - and during the morning ambitiously keep adding items, regardless of whether any of the earlier tasks have been accomplished.  By mid-afternoon, after a dozen diversions, I'm usually so behind and so overwhelmed that I don't refer back to it again - by then what has to done is pretty obvious and the rest can wait until tomorrow.

Sometimes, but not often, I use the previous day's list to help formulate the new one.  Mostly though, I can't even find it - usually it's been a case of it becoming out of sight and therefore out of mind.  Anyway, each new list tends to have a mind of its own, depending on the mood I'm in.  The things I felt urged to achieve yesterday may no longer be on the agenda. 

Every so often I gather up a handful of abandoned lists and retrieve a whole hotch-potch of forgotten intentions.  These I use to make up a Grand List of still important tasks I want to get to in the longer term.  This TO DO list frequently has the status worthy of becoming an electronic document.  My hard drive has a whole folder headed LISTS - with my Birthdays list, Addresses list, Movies to see list, Books to read list, and so on.  The THINGS TO DO WHEN I RETIRE list, begun two years before the event, makes a fascinating read five years down the track.

Permanently on the outdoor side of the list for the next few weeks will be 'mulch'.  Nine of these densely packed bales of sugar-cane tops were delivered this week.  We order in a load every year to spread on the garden to help it through the summer.

These babies are BIG - each roll is as high as my shoulder - and they take a lot of grunt to move around the garden, even before the spreading begins.  It's hot dusty work, whether you use a pitch-fork (him) or gloved hands (me).  Much easier to do on a cool day!

So, away with the blog and on with the slog.  Just need to get today's list together first - and perhaps make a start on the new Grand List.   Too late to bother with SPRING JOBS now, it's time for the THINGS TO DO BEFORE CHRISTMAS list.

Comments

[Sonia]

Very interesting this packed bales of sugar-cane! Here we use grass and another little and tiny vegetal garbage to spread on garden, around the trees.
About your "TO DO" list, it's a good habit,indeed. Today you inspire me! I will make my "TO DO" list right away!!

[pablo]

Well, I hope you find a moment to make a blog post now and then.

[Tjilpi]

Was it Bertrand Russell who raised the problem of the ontological status of "The List of Lists"? On which book shelf does it properly belong? Beside the lists it lists, or on another shelf?

[Alice]

Hi Jude - I would love just one of the bales of sugar cane mulch. How big is your garden? Mulching is a lot of work but it saves even more work in the way of watering and weeding, and the improvement to the soil is amazing. We use lucerne mulch on the vegie beds, and either that or pea straw, forest litter or whatever we can get for the rest of the garden. I love your comedy of list-writing; I occasionally write shopping lists but rarely take them with me, or if I do, I can't find them in my handbag.