Nobody ever told me that being a gardener was easy work, and certainly nobody told me it would be lucrative, but... geez. Sometimes I stop in the middle of what I'm doing and take a good look at myself, and wonder where my brain is.

Wednesday. Woof. I was so looking forward to that job, too, working at a new place with its charming little (I thought) native and shady garden. I was psyched because there were some neat little areas, some plants I wasn't totally familiar with, and the lady sounded so sweet on the phone. Turns out she had much more in mind that I bargained for, so I was only able to complete the smallest, most visible portion of the garden within the time frame I gave her. The ground was hard as a rock from lack of rain. If only I'd asked her to turn on some irrigation for that area the night before I came, I could have gotten twice as much accomplished. And, if I hadn't assumed that someone with a native garden would want to save all their matchstick weed, instead of having me pull it all out, I could have done a much better job of estimating.

Yes, pictures beforehand are a very good idea, but they don't always let you in to the customer's mind. Nobody to blame but myself, of course. Live and learn, and learn, and learn.