124 - friday

I weeded the front beds and backyard today. the backyard was a jungle. until we landscape it, I see no point in frequent weeding: pulling the weeds just makes room for new ones to grow. so, I've been mowing (cringe) some of the weeds and keeping up with the ones that sprout up around the few things we do have planted. this morning I tended to the area around the plantings and also pulled up the really big stuff. two and a half hours later, the yard looks better but my back is absolutely torched. my lower back/butt/hamstrings are going to feel great on my 6- and 13-mile runs this weekend. not.

check out this little guy that I found in one of the front beds! stick bug!!

 evolution is amazing. what a bizarre looking critter! 

I'm pretty sure stick bugs didn't evolve to blend in with my candystriped gardening gloves, though, so I put it back where I found it.

I wish all my garden pests looked more like cool stick insects and less like giant bloodthirsty spiders. although, a quick wiki search reveals I probably should have offed the stick bug, or put it to work in the weed-riddled backyard instead of on my snapdragons. they eat plants! (they also have sex for the longest amount of time of all the insects. you go, glen coco.)