Kinda busy weekend

I took advantage of the weather over the weekend.

• Tom found that we had a froggy survivor in the pond. Yay!
  
• Skimmed a fair amount of crud and sticks and leaves out of the pond.
  
• Got the rototiller fired up, tilled an additional area around the pond, between 2 and 4 more feet in different areas. Also tilled the garden including adding an extra 4 feet on a couple of sides. Couldn't get too close on the south side because the strawberry runners are all over and I'll have to let them come up before I move them. I wanted to till under all the old corn stalks and whatnot early to let them start to break down.
  
• Got weed barrier down over most of the new area around the pond, and wood chips over much of it, and raked up the old chips so they're not matted down anymore. I need to keep raking that up every month or two, stuff is growing in the chips.
  
• Moved the barberry that was by the pond; it was too close to the sage and they'd be growing into each other soon. It's still small enough to be pretty movable so now it's out another 15 feet.
  
• Got the lawn tractor out, charged the battery, changed the oil, took the mower deck off, power washed it, bought and installed a new main drive belt for it (the old one was pretty bad looking and would surely have failed this year anyway, and taking the deck off is a PITA with this tractor, so I don't want to have to do it twice in one year), sharpened the blades, got it all back together.
  
• Got some stuff out of the garage so it's possible to start organizing things a bit. Did some cleanup, got a few things out that won't be hurt by another few frosts.
  
• Fixed the broken pond skimmer; bought a new net but the connection was different, so a little engineering was required. The engineering involved duct tape so that's all good.
  
• Power washed the deck (about 2 inches of thistle seed shells under the bird feeder).
  
• Power washed my bike. Also the disc brake calipers were making a little noise after last week's cleaning, so I took it apart again and this time lubed the adjusters and worked them a bit. It seems much better now. Re-applied proofide to the new leather saddle - that's supposed to be every 3 months but I figure one more time after the first week can't hurt. Oiled the chain too.
  
• Installed a hose hanger on the southeast corner of the house - I got pretty tired of moving the hose 3 times every time I mowed the lawn last year.
  
• Started some pansies and snapdragons
  
• Put together the garden wheelbarrow we inherited from J's parents, used it a bit.
  
• Got the laundry line (spider) out of the garage, installed in its socket in the back yard and used it to dry my bike clothes after washing them, so that's broken in for the year.
  
• Checked tire pressure and oil level in all the cars. I drove the Taurus to SEMGS on Saturday; I don't remember the last time I moved it, but it was STUCK to the pavement; when I put it in reverse, it went "...pop...pop..........pop.pop" as the 4 tires came off the pavement, then "bumpityBumpityBumpity" as the flat-on-one-side tires went down the driveway, and the brakes made rusty sounds until I'd gone all the way to Dexter, around to Lowes, back to Dexter and was about to leave for home before they quieted down.
  
• Watched The Colour of Magic with the kids; it was very good, better than the books, actually, though of course much was left out (keep in mind that my opinion of CoM is much lower than of the rest of the books).
  
• Swapped out the electrical plates in the basement with oversized ones; I still don't quite have the hang of the router tool for punching out the drywall and there were some gaps around a couple of the plates.
  
• Generally picked up a lot of crud out of the yard, old broken bits of stuff that's been hiding and slowly falling apart all winter.
  
• Filled a newly-bought umbrella base with pea gravel. It's supposed to take sand but I had the gravel already for this purpose.
  

Time for bed. OK, time to finish the dishes, then go to bed.