2017 - February Annie's Day

This post 2017 February Annie’s Day was written by AnnieinAustin/Diva Glinda for the Divas of the Dirt Blog.

For nearly 20 years the Divas took turns serving breakfast, then going out to work on their gardens together, and then going in for lunch sometime in the late afternoon. We loved doing it, but things change. Did the hostess really need to make two sit-down meals?

The Divas decided to skip the big breakfasts, eat something at home and gather with what my mom called “Coffee And…” , a cup of java and something simple - maybe a slice of coffee cake or a muffin. Then we’d go out and work on the project and in the afternoon the hostess would serve lunch. We’d try out the new plan at Diva Annie’s garden day in late February.

February in Central Texas is always a gamble. In some years it’s so cold and wet that the meeting has to be cancelled or rescheduled. In other years we’re working outside on one of the most perfect spring days you could imagine. In 2017, Annie threw the dice and won: Sunny and 80F. 

Annie had already emailed everyone that she needed help with general cleanup: Pruning, raking of leaves, weeding, snipping back.

Usually Annie did her fall-winter clean up in stages. But she’d been unable to rake this time and there had been enough cold weather in January to kill back many of Annie’s plants. This year’s cleanup would need a lot of hands and a lot of paper yard bags!

Sugar was out of town with her family, Buffy would be in-and-out and Glinda could come for a while but would be late, so Annie, Karla, Mattie, Mindy and Sophia got to work. Buffy came, Buffy left. Glinda came, Glinda left, Buffy returned,

They clipped, they pruned, they cut back, but mostly they raked. And raked. Annie’s neighbor has an enormous Arizona Ash with a canopy that spreads over one half of Annie’s front yard. Annie has a big Chinese pistache that spreads over the middle. All those leaves and the cut back plants added up to a lot of yard bags. It was rumored that there were 37 yard bags when the Divas of the Dirt were done.

February is grillin’ weather in Austin –  at lunchtime the Divas were pleased to see skewers laden with chicken, shrimp, tomatoes, zucchini, pepper and mushrooms, cooked on the grill, served with sides of cauliflower rice and cabbage salad. Everything was delicious and also healthy!

For dessert she presented gluten-free brownies and vanilla bean ice cream.

So far the new plan worked well.

This post 2017 February Annie’s Day was written by AnnieinAustin/Diva Glinda for the Divas of the Dirt Blog.