I went out after work and finished putting the black plastic down where I want to kill off grass for milkweed, and then raked up a metric fuckton (fucktonne?) of leaves, sticks, sweetgum balls and sunflower shells. Baby tulip tree has buds in spite of the abuse it suffered getting here, and so does the lilac. I think my spicebush is okay, but I see deer nibbles, so I may have to wrap them in chicken wire or something. Butterfly bushes appear dead, but they always do, and I’m too scared to go hacking at them. No activity yet on the Rose of Sharon, but the branches are still flexible, and that shrub is lazy when it comes to getting started in spring. Time will tell. During my raking, I also uncovered some green stuff that I didn’t even know I had. I knew I had a couple of peonies, but beside them I uncovered something that looks like it’s in the lily family, and something that looks like daffodil or narcissus, but doesn’t look exactly like either one. I’ll do some googling and see whether I can find out what they are. Since it was 70 degrees today and sunny but tomorrow is supposed to be 40 degrees with snow, I covered the mystery green stuff and the new sprouts of the peonies with chicken wire and plastic. If they had been exposed to the cold all along, I would have left them alone, but they were insulated by piles of leaves, so they need protection from the cold, since the tender new sprouts are not ready to handle cold and snow. Anyway, it felt good to get out and work in the yard even if it did remind me just how out of shape I get over the winter. I’m probably going to be sore tomorrow, but at least I’ll be sore because I was working in the yard that I own!