Am I simply mad?

Am I the only one who gardens in the heat of the day in the prime of the summer? If I have a project, I simply cannot stop myself. It's madness, I tell you, pure madness! I do know I'm not the only one though. I see others in my hood doing the same thing. This gardening thing...it's an obsession, no doubt. Actually, most of what I did yesterday wasn't ever gardening, per say. It was more like, oh, makingthingsbearableing. We have this spot. Oh, this spot is the bane of my existence. It's just a small space, but one that we tramp through all. the. time. After we put the BD fence in, this spot was left ravaged. Eventually (and I use this term loosely), the opener for the gate will go there and it will look more official. Regardless of that, its still a major thoroughfare as it connects us from the breezeway to the backyard on that side. It needed help. A lot of help. It was all chunks of dirt and full of rocks and all uneven with a treacherous hole where the pad for the opener is gonna go.

Ugly, ugly. My poor little pondlette looks so sad and lonely there. I'm really liking that pondlette, weird as it may be. Jackdaddy is not so enthused. He keeps asking me what it is.


Here's the view from the other side.
I dug out about 473 wheelbarrows of dirt, and hauled them to the compost. Then I raked and leveled and raked and leveled and raked and leveled. Then I filled the wheelbarrow with decomposed granite. Then the wheelbarrow fell over from too much weight. Then I shoveled the granite back into the wheelbarrow. Then I unloaded the granite into said area. Then I smoothed and leveled and smoothed and leveled. Then I did the last two parts all over again, including the part where the *%&#^@ wheelbarrow falls over. That was a 2 Tylenol night, my friends.
Now, here's the depressing part. After all that work, the damn thing doesn't look much different than it did. Oh, I mean, it's a clean and tidy and there are no holes or booby traps, but, to anyone but me, it just looks kinda like it did. See?


Sigh. So, you know me, I'm gonna have to gussy it up some. I've got a silhouette idea for that metal wall and I'm having a bit of fun with empty IZZE bottles. (OMG, have you had an IZZE drink? Girl, girl, girl.)
There is some serious kitsch starting to happen around here. Not sure why. Is kitsch a byproduct of being southern? Maybe it's a byproduct of middle age. Now, if you stop by the yard and you see one of those wooden cut-outs of a lady leaning over with her bloomers showing, you feel free to do an intervention. That kinda crap sneaks up on ya', I know it does. I don't know if IZZE bottles are as "bad" as big butted lady cut-outs, but I'm keeping an eye on it all.