Grunge Day

Don't get close! I'm sure I reek. Really, really, reek. Mind you, it's just a logical conclusion, since my nose gets stuffy in this humidity, especially when out pulling grasses beginning to sport pollen. Not only did I work two  morning shifts of yard work - less than an hour each -  to the point where even the bandana can't keep the sweat out of my eyes, but I'm recycling the same work clothes without bothering to launder them for the last couple weeks in between times. I mean, what's the point? 

I promise you I shower as many times a day as is necessary to appear in even semi-polite company. But the clothes are old, sturdy,  and pretty well saturated by now with Deep Woods Off! and still do an excellent job of keeping most of the mosquitoes at bay. That's a big thing. I'm the person they zoom in on even in crowds. I recall decades ago liking to date one particular fellow because the  mosquitoes liked him even better then they did me! It was a gift.

I have no plans to go out any more today. Not anywhere. Tomorrow holds errands enough, and yesterday did as well.  Today I needed to make more progress on the yard. There are days when I have to force myself to get out there, especially when if I delay it's going to creep up in to the 90s. For you AZ folk, recall those are humid 90s. I'd be perfectly comfortable working in the dry air. Or at least that's what I tell myself when I get whiny here. And remember, it's a self-assigned task. Today was one of those days when the job kept nagging at me to return and do more.

The raspberry patch has been essentially completed along the south side, and had a bit done along the north. There's still a bit of grass to kill or pull, and by now my vote is in for kill. It's not near anything that needs to live in case of wind drift. The ground weeds were much more fun when I started, when the ground was still moist from recent rains so the roots pulled up easily, and the chair feet sunk in about two inches before I finished each spot. Yes, I'm doing as much sitting work as possible. But the main job has long since switched to cutting. Cutting trees. Cutting virginia creeper vines so old they spring from embedded vines-become-trunks over an inch thick and impossible to pull out of the ground. So I have to follow behind myself after each cut by painting the remaining "stump" whether tree or vine with stump killer. Then there's piling up, dragging out to new piles, and trying to keep my footing in very uneven ground.

Along the way it's helpful if I can manage to keep track of my tools. I "lost" my paint brush for over a day. I know exactly where I put it last, next to the hand pruners and loppers just outside the fence where I stopped for the day. Even the bottle I use to hold small amounts of chemical as I go around was right there. But could I find the brush? I dug back grass, pulled out leaves, checked on the other side of the fence in case, and... nothing. I started again the next morning, sure I'd overlooked something perfectly simple and there it would be right in plain sight. It was. Right in front of my nose if my nose was at the right angle. It was clinging to a cross wire in the fence! You know, only about a foot off the ground. But hey, those leaves and grasses needed to be cleared out anyway. I guess.

I dug out the "before" pictures of the garden I took as part of the whole yard project and compared them with current progress to make sure I wasn't just imagining my level of progress. In the "before" you can't even see half way back into the raspberry patch. Now one side is empty and at the far end the three old bird houses can be clearly seen hanging precariously where they are wired to fence posts, awaiting replacements (ordered) so new families can grow up there. The other side shows some progress when you know where to look, but you have to know vines got removed there too before overhanging branches got chopped off. Still lots of work there, like raking up piles of dead vegetation, but I decided on a change-up.

It's Paul's fault. He started clearing a bit along the deck railing. It was pretty solid box elder trees, multi-stemmed from previous attempts to cut the trees down without killing stumps. Five years ago the west side of the deck was lined with nanking cherries. For whatever reason, Paul cut those down and replaced them with honeyberries. Yeah, I'd never heard of them either. Two short bushes have survived and he's picked a bowlful of very oval blue berries for me to eat. They are very tart but delicious combined with cottage cheese, my breakfast these last three days.  Anyway, in order to get at the honeyberries he needed to pull out grass taller then they were, and he also started taking out sow thistles and smaller trees. Apparently he wasn't waiting for my efforts to reach that part of the yard. Berries ready now! NOW! So I switched from the other side of the raspberry patch to the deck. Clipping and painting, tossing large branches over the honeyberry bushes onto the grass to be stacked later next to the garden with all the other woody refuse so far.

It's a much bigger pile now. It would be even larger but I hit my wall, not just in energy but in what I can do without a chain saw. I turned the corner and started working on the south side of the deck next to the old pond. Those trees have huge convoluted stumps. I'll cheerfully follow Paul around with a paint brush after he takes those down close to ground level. But my tools literally won't cut it. Meanwhile he should be impressed with my progress.The honeyberries should too, now that they're getting more sun.

But I've changed my mind. Enough grunge day. I NEED A SHOWER!