Spring and Piddlin’

By |2019-04-06T14:49:51-05:00April 8th, 2019|A Writer's Life|2 Comments

Spring brings out my lackadaisicalness. I’m not lazy, but something about a warm spring day has me doing a lot of piddlin’ around and not staying on task.

I find myself staring into space or watching a cardinal bathe in our water fountain instead of attending to what needs to be done. Or, I’ll wander outside randomly pulling weeds and hours will pass.

Last night I pulled an invasive weed from one of the boxwoods at the back of the yard. Not a bad thing, in fact something that needed to be done, but that led to trimming the Brunfelsia, better known as yesterday, today and tomorrow plant.

SOURCE: B.navez – Self-photographed, CC BY-SA 3.0, commons.wikimedia.org

The shrub lives on the neighbor’s side of the fence, but hangs over into our yard. The blooms start out purple, fade to lavender, and finally turn white over days. Hence the name yesterday, today, and tomorrow. A plant can have all three at once, which makes it lovely to look at.

Unfortunately all parts of the plant (flowers, leaves, berries, and seeds) are considered toxic to animals.

If one of my four legged boys were to eat a seedpod or branch, they could die. That’s why I trim it to the neighbor’s side of the fence.

Again, my piddlin’ led to a very necessary thing, but not what I was supposed to be doing. I should have been inside fixin’ supper.

Who wants to eat when you can enjoy the outdoors?  Too soon it will hot and humid and we’ll be huddling inside in the air conditioning. You have to piddle and take the spring days while you can.

I tried to explain this to my hubby and doggies. They weren’t particularly sympathetic.