This week on Truthful Tuesday, hosted by Thoughts and Theories, asks:

• Did you get a long weekend this Labor Day, or did you have to work? (Specifically, I’m asking about Monday, but it could be in reference to Saturday or Sunday, if that applies to you.)
• Assuming you had Monday off, did you do anything special for the end of summer? If you weren’t off, is there anything you would have done?

I got a slightly longer weekend as I got to get off work early on Friday. I got off at 1 PM as opposed to my usual 4 or 5 PM as work was shutting down its own website for upgrade over the weekend. It was supposed to be down at 10 AM on Friday but it left it on for a few more hours to allow the stragglers (i.e me) to finish up. It gave me a chance to go look at rocks for my front yards, refuel my car, and get a few more bags of compost for the garden.

I did so much over the weekend that if it were a fruit, it would’ve been squeezed dry.

I transplanted my 3 blueberry bushes from its tiny containers into large grow bags. I can’t grow blueberries in the ground here due to the high PH and poor soil (especially in my backyard). Blueberries desire super acidic soil, so container planting is preferable. I had to create my own soil mix with compost and peat moss with lots of soil acidifier added.

Grow bags or root pouches are the only thing I dare to use to house these blueberries. Two of the plants are supposed to get up to 4 – 6 feet in height and width. I don’t think there’s a container that will allow it to get to this size and not get root bound. So a grow bag it is.

I also mulched the flower bed along the backyard fence, well half of it, the other half will have to wait until tonight or tomorrow. The temperature has crept back up to 90-degrees in the last few days. So I’ll have to wait until it cools down a little before heading out in the hot sun.

We did do something special for the end of summer. My mom’s brother hosted a barbecue next door, campfire style. We sat in a circle around the charcoal style grill and roasted chicken wings, ribs, hot dogs, and all other sorts of goodies. My aunt even attempted to break her record of eating 10 chicken wings, previously set when she was a teen.

It was fun and a nice respite from all the arguing my mom and I had over the weekend regarding my plans to transform the front yard from grass to xeriscape.