At some point after I moved to Concord, five years ago, I decided that I needed a "signature party" like all my friends seemed to have. I have a hard time dealing with the details of planning social events, but I figured that some sort of open-invite theme party would be within my cope-scope.

As my garden started taking shape, it became clear to me that it needed to be the context for my signature party…which gave me an excuse to put it off for a while until I felt the yard was in the proper shape. At some point this winter, I set myself the goal of getting everything in shape to have my first garden party this year.

The second part of my party theme came courtesy of thread_walker, who suggested that I invite all my author friends to come and read from their works. It sounded like the perfect excuse for bringing together friends from all my different social circles, and everyone could be audience, after all! So I scanned the calendar and picked a date that didn't conflict too badly with anything I was aware of. That would be next Saturday. (If you're local, would like to come, and haven't received an invitation either because you aren't on facebook or because I didn't think you'd be interested, let me know.)

In addition to the incremental improvements to the garden, the big project in preparation was taking out the annoying concrete walkway along the back side of the yard. This was necessary so that I could finish installing the last bit of the "formal garden", which overlapped the walkway slightly. I haven't gotten very far at filling in the shallow trench this project produced, but we'll cope.

So today's project was cleaning up the back yard: mowing, raking, some pruning. Tomorrow I finish laying out the walkways in the formal garden and get the fountain cleaned, adjusted, and running. Oh, and clean up the inside of the house a little bit. Heck, maybe I'll finish the "complete once-through housecleaning" I started back in January.

Heres's where the party will be held (or actually: in the shade of the mulberry tree off to the right of this).