Last weekend's work for my husband consisted of cleaning out the garage, removing the detritus we had carried into the garage daily through our ravine walks, and that was a relief, to be able to walk now into a place cleared of all that dried muck that had accumulated. Last weekend as well my husband got around to changing the ice tires and wheels for his pick-up truck and and our car, to put the all-weather tires on until next winter comes around again. I'd so much prefer he take them to a garage and get them done there, but he insists they're a trifle to do and he's more than capable of doing them himself. Needless to say, it's time-consuming, hard physical work.

He's more recently, when time permits, been putting together the new gazebo he bought to install on our deck, last fall. In the fall  he had taken down the old one that had worked well for us for about fifteen years, but we were unable any longer to get replacement canvas tops for the gazebo. So he removed the frame and put it out for collection by whomever it is that patrols the area the day before household waste pick-up weekly, and retrieves such things for metal scrap recycling.

After he had scraped down the deck last week, and then re-applied the waterproof stain he always uses, the erection of the new gazebo was next in line. He's got the sides up and has installed the curtains, and now what remains is for the top to be put in place in its metal sections, more durable than the canvas tops we'd previously used.

But even that has to wait, because this morning he hauled the garden pots out of storage and has begun distributing them around the garden, front and back, to be filled with a mixture of garden soil, aged manure and peat moss. I'll add bonemeal/bloodmeal when I'm ready to plant the annuals in them. Yesterday we took time out after our ravine walk to drive over to the rural growers from whom we usually get the flats of geraniums and begonias, along with associated other flowers; asters, lobelia and whatever else strikes our fancy.

And soon the planting frenzy will begin. It is, after all, the Victoria Day long-weekend that Canadians wait for as their traditional signal that it is unlikely any more frost conditions will arise. Though that isn't always the case.