Remember to Remember

Last year I wanted to move the boxwood and a new hosta out from under the leaves of some large hostas. Neither were getting enough light. I kept walking past them and going "Oh! I really need to move them to a better home.", and then I'd apologize, get interested in something else and forget. So much to remember when you are caring for large gardens. I remembered three times this season and I got them both done this past week. The rain last night helped to seat them in. They are all doing fine. 

I have since taken to having a very small notebook  in at least one of my pockets to write these things down and I try to remember a pen or a pencil (blood or plant dye is hard to work with). However, like my brain, the notebooks quicklys become stuffed with things to remember and then become part of a larger library of notebooks (with various other remembrances), sitting on my desk. I have to remember to remember to read them often and cross out those things that I have done or can no longer do (because I have forgotten to remember to do them).

Lists are great tools - provided you remember to look back at them. They can quickly become libraries of thoughts, drawings, clippings and comments that eventually end up in the file marked 13 because they are no longer relevant. My partner Tim, has tables full of lists, workbenches full of lists, walls with lists pinned to them and small little lists that find their way into his wallet or deep inside a corner of his jeans pocket. When he's away from home he may call me and ask me about one of the items on one of his lists. I ask him which one and he may say..."I think it was on the blue sheet under the white sheet next to the bowl of granola...just look for it, you'll find it. I need the info, I'm at Fleet right now...". Right. Right away Dear. Let's see, the pink sheet under the pile of library books, next to the mason jar of dried spinach...Got It! 

He and I are project people. Intensely curious. Mechanically gifted and able to envision things graphically as they could be, not as they are. It's a curse that keeps a person constantly in motion and keeps us coming up with multiple projects that could probably be done by someone else or purchased somewhere with little labor involved. 

The Snowplow Tractor Cab Project

You just add to your list of projects and then make a list for each project and then a list of what you need to complete the project...with more things to remember than you have time in your life to forget....and don't forget to make a list of where you have to be during the week, what you have to get at the grocery store and what you plan to cook...I AM EXHAUSTED! Maybe I need to make a list of what I need to remember to do so that I can get a chance to remember...now what was the second thing that I was going to put on that list? 

I must remember to plant one last hemlock and my two hickory trees this week. I believe that I have a spot for all three and I will have to remember to make deer cages and use wood chips for the mulch (make a list for that). The other hemlocks are doing fine. All are putting out new shoots. I will have to protect them over the winter and oh yea, remember to put a hardware cloth lid on those cages so the deer can't reach in and nip off the tops. I want trees, not low growing hedges.

Remember that for me someone....please?

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