There are lots of ways not to tell when you're meeting your goals. In my case, it's about when my morning yard work is actually accomplishing anything, whether for me, or for the yard. For example, I can't tell by checking how much sweat is soaking my bandana. While it is accomplishing its goal of keeping sweat out of my eyes so I don't have to stop earlier than I'd prefer, the sweat is going to start early and continue doing so at least partly because it's just plain muggy out. Those of you Arizona natives can only imagine what that means. Up here sweat can break out by walking across the street to the mailbox! I assure you it's not that long a driveway.
I'm not sure it counts that the new birdhouses are here. Sure, it's progress in depleting my checking account. But the fact that the old birdhouses no longer hang from their posts simply means that Paul threw them in the bonfire last weekend, while no cooking was happening. The news ones still sit on the living room floor, needing to be wired to their steel posts and having their stapled-on labels removed.
Sometimes you can tell what you're accomplishing by the size of the piles of removed vegetation as compared to the day before. Then again, the bottom layers do compact after being severed from their roots, so I try not to be discouraged. On other days, the whole workout might simply be fighting with hundreds of pieces of wire in old fencing to separate them from their other side or from other pieces, even from branches which have grown through, even around the wire. Fencing in places where it is no longer needed merely serves to keep an area from being mowed, allowing even more weedy vegetation to grow there. When the fencing removal takes more than two days for a six foot section, it is even easier to become discouraged that no progress is being made.
Some days progress is measured by sunlight shining into places where it hasn't shone for years. It may be thick weeds opening up the ground by their absence, or a removed canopy - vines or branches - letting it shine where desired growth has been stunted. Progress might be where the house is again visible, or access to various corners of the yard is enabled, or even where the firewood pile grows taller. Granted, Paul cuts branches into sections of firewood, but I'm the one providing the piles of brush.
Todays' progress was counted in several ways. First, I cut branches back along the fence to create a path back to my real goal, cutting back an amur maple before it has a chance to mature and spread this years crop of thousands of seeds. Trust me, there can't possibly be enough chipmunks in the world to eat them all before they sprout. That unfortunate fact is the reason we've been fighting to eradicate them from the yard for over 25 of the 30 years we've been here. They have spectacular fall color, the reason they were planted in the first place, but on balance, well, bye bye.
The path along the fence was blocked until this morning. First, Paul mowed a solid cover of foot tall weeds and baby chokecherry bushes lining the way last weekend. Then today I cut back the lower branches (under 6') from the row of mature chokecherries which seeded the babies. The amur maple was at the far end of that row, along the fence for the back yard. Lest you think walking this path after it had been mowed was easy, know that the mower is set high for this lumpy yard, about 5". So my path was littered with 5" baby tree spikes sticking up every few inches. (Never walk in our yard barefoot!!!) As I worked my way back through this, an abandoned bicycle was discovered, moved out where it could be seen and was out of the way of the path I was working on. It needed to be nearly four feet wide, not just for me and tools, but for hauling back out all the leafy branches I was bringing back out for the day's new brush pile.
Resting for a few minutes revealed a different kind of progress, one not my own. Looking back at my recent progress I was also looking into the sun. Several strands of spider silk stretched across this new clearing, showing how several young spiders had just launched themselves into the light breeze to stretch across into the trees where presumably better meals could be found. Then again, I realized my own progress in ridding myself of the phobia that just a few decades earlier would have prevented me from walking back through that path, through those silk strands, because, spiders!!! (Hey, I'm not claiming cure, just a little more sense about it.)
By the time I got to the corner with the tree, young chokecherries were replaced by large ferns, hiding a lower ground cover of abandoned cut firewood and smaller branches, never having been moved to where they could be used. In order to help ensure safe(r) footing, those needed to be removed before I started getting ambitious in my cutting. As I did so, I had occasion to note that the uneven footing wasn't bothering me as much as it had when this project first started a month ago. Ah hah! Progress!
Another sign of my personal progress was my balance while reaching the loppers up over my head to cut all the branches I could reach. There is a single one left, as it doesn't get small enough for the loppers to cut through until about 7 feet up. Don't even try to imagine me climbing a chair or ladder to get up that far! Eventually, Paul will have to come out with the chain saw for the main trunk, followed by me with stump killer, but that can wait till later in the season. For now, I'll ask Paul to cut that final branch this afternoon, so it's not left to mature its seeds, as there are hundreds on that one alone. Meanwhile we have two bonfires planned for family to come over this holiday weekend, weenie roasts plus s'mores, and as soon as the food cooking is done these seedy branches can go on it - for entertainment. There is plenty of dry wood to keep the fire going strongly enough to burn the green.
But there was one final sign of my personal progress today. While I was reaching up with the loppers for the last highest branch I could reach, I felt something really weird. Something completely new to me. Something I'm not sure was really what I was feeling. Something I had to take my gloves off to confirm. My jeans had just slid down to my hips and were in danger of sliding further!
Blush!
I am so glad my next door neighbors had already left for work. Also glad I hadn't trampled down all those tall ferns around the tree. At the time, I wasn't concerned about trampling them. We've discovered over the years that is it impossible to discourage those ferns from growing, especially where you don't want them to because they choke out shorter flowers. They will be back. But right then I was glad to have them around me.
With a little reflection, I decided not to get too excited about the jeans. Sure, I couldn't squeeze into them at all not so long ago. I still have to make sure the zipper pull is left pointed up when it's open so there's room for fingers to reach it for pulling up, or it gets jammed in place at the bottom. On the other hand, they haven't been laundered for a couple weeks. They are just working duds, after all. The longer I wear them, they more they stretch out. The drier sets them back to their baseline size. So we'll really have to wait till next laundry day to find out if I'm really shrinking, right? Meantime, maybe a belt? Or maybe not, since they're hanging right where they ought to now.
Another way it's really kinda weird, though. After being out in the yard sweating away, when I come inside I have to sit around both to cool off and to dry out. My shirt when damp sticks to my back so hard I can't pull it off over my head. Steve often is asleep that time of day, so I'm on my own. It's also gotten baggier after I worked in it for several days, but it still sticks to me. I'm just not used to a "sliding" wardrobe.
I'm still putting a plus check in the improved balance column though. And maybe one in the "not-completely-insane-due-to-unreasonable-hope (yet)" column.
To be determined.
No comments:
Post a Comment