It's perfect weather for garden installation around here

I think normally when someone says, "Yeah, I'm taking the whole week of Thanksgiving off because we have plans" it means that the person is traveling to spend the holiday with relatives or go on a vacation of some sort to celebrate the holiday.

Not so around here.

When Hubby said he'd be taking the whole week of Thanksgiving off because we have plans, it's because:

1. a portable storage container is being delivered to our driveway
2. the last of 1500 pounds of boulders needs to be moved out of the back of our low-riding pickup truck
3. the invasive ivy and vinca major that's grown through the fence from the neighbor's yard over the past few years needs to be hacked away
4. the boulders that were in the pickup need to be arranged to line the path down the south sideyard in preparation to install a pea gravel and flagstone path (which we'll probably tackle during his time off around Christmas)

Oh... and Hubby is also doing the pre-holiday food shopping that needs to be done while I'm sitting here typing this blog post. Yeah, I married a saint of a man.

The garage has, up to now, been our storage area for my floral design supplies (including some massive coolers too big to put anywhere else and big boxes of blocks of floral foam), home construction materials, and food storage in pantry units down one wall. Over the past few weeks, we've relocated the pantry units to available temporary space in the house, but there isn't room anywhere for everything else in the garage that needs to be cleared out in order to begin the work of transforming the space into my new studio.

So last week, we made the decision that we'd just have to bite the bullet and include the cost of a portable storage unit in our construction budget.

The portable storage unit was delivered on-schedule mid-day on Monday. It's called CoolBox because (unlike other portable store pods) this one is completely insulated so the interior stays more temperate. The 16 foot x 8 foot unit is now sitting in our driveway taking up one parking space with its door facing our garage door. Today, Hubby started the transfer of stuff from the garage to the unit while I worked on setting rocks.

Hubby had done the monumental task of cutting back ivy the past couple of Saturdays (despite being plagued with an allergic reaction to all the stuff he was kicking up in the process). Once he had cleared the ivy away to reveal bare ground, he started moving rocks from the back of the pickup and pre-placing them in a line.

Then it was my job to come along and apply my vision to the placement of the rocks. I had to dig, scoot, and rearrange to get each one looking just right. The long course of rocks now forms a raised bed for the warm climate lilacs, loquat trees and Cecile Brunner rosebush that form the dense arch of foliage leading down the sideyard to our "secret garden" in back.

Hubby smartly discovered one rock with a little "mouse hole" on the bottom and placed it perfectly over the irrigation line that runs to the raised bed (you can see it in the photo above). (I'm telling you, he's awesome!)

With the November air cool and crisp, it was the perfect time to be doing this hard labor.

This time of year is always interesting in the garden. There are some trees and bushes (the liquid amber, plum, pomegranate and cherry) that are turning beautiful shades of yellow gold or russet red. At the same time, the leaves of the non-deciduous trees and bushes, like the thick glossy loquat leaves, remain a lush green. The hummingbirds and bees still have plenty to snack on since the lavender, loquat and navel orange are in bloom. At the same time, their deciduous neighbors have bare branches ready for winter.

It's such a wonderful time to be out in the garden, I may have a hard time breaking away for the Thanksgiving festivities. Then again I'm "a bona fide turkaconis freak" of major proportions so it probably won't be that hard to lure me away.

We are not being compensated in any way by CoolBox Portable Storage or getacoolbox.com for the photo of their storage container or mention of their company's services in this blog post.