Not for Sissies

What's not for sissies? Yard work. Which definitely means it's not for me. But what did I do this weekend?

I painted my nails. What'd you think?

Nah, I did actually do some  yard work. *shudder*

It was supposed to storm all day Saturday so I put off priming my walls. It may be an old wives' tale but I've heard it said that you shouldn't paint when it's raining. Something about the humidity? So since it was supposed to storm all day Saturday I didn't prep the walls Friday night. (wash them down and tape the trim, in case you're wondering.)

Saturday ended up being a gloriously amazing day. Sunshine, nice breeze and warm temps. Just glorious. But since I didn't have my walls prepped and I was slightly paranoid about the odds of it suddenly bursting into rain I still decided against priming the paneling.

So instead I...dun dun dun...yard work. *shudder*

I started out just picking up a stick here and stick there while I was outside with Libs letting her do her "business." I had a sink half full of dishes that I'd started washing before the silly DP decided she needed to pee. But once I started picking up a stick here and a stick there I decided I needed to go whole hog and just pick them ALL up. Winter was hard on my yard,  ya'll. Sticks, limbs, pine cones, etc. Daddy had already told me like, five gazillion trillion times that before he'd come mow I needed to clean all that crap up.

I think I was half hoping he'd just take pity on me like he's done in the past and do it for me. How incredibly selfish and lazy is THAT? (A lot.)

So I dumped the DP in the house (with the half finished sink of dishes), donned my gloves and wrestled my wheel barrow into submission. (I have a wheelbarrow!) I got a work out, for sure. Imagine someone told you to go into the forest and clean up the forest floor of every stick, twig, limb, pine cone and pine needle and that's what cleaning up my yard was like. Cause I gots trees, ya'll. Lotsa trees. And they shed everything EVERYWHERE. No sooner than I'd think I had them all than I'd look around and spot another pile. I walked the yard probably five times and found new sticks on every trip that I hadn't seen before.

Then when I got to the pine cone stage I almost sat on the ground and cried. Cause ya'll? Pine cones multiply like bunnies.  And they bite. Even through gloves, those suckers can draw blood if you're not careful. So brace yourselves for what I did next...

I used. A rake.

Yes. I used a rake and raked up all the pine cones and most of the pine needles. But here's where I got a tad lazy. Instead of loading all that crap in the wheel barrow and hauling it to the woods behind my house I, uh, I smooshed it at the bases of the pine trees.

What? It's like mulch. Or at least that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Had I been a good blogger I'd have taken pictures. But there's something about being in the grips of the kind of insanity that involves me using garden tools that blanks out my regular thought processes. Things like taking photos of my hard work don't occur.

I worked on all that mess for about four hours with only a twenty minute break to finish the dishes. (I went inside for a potty break, remembered the dishes and figured I'd better finished them.) The DP was NOT happy with me but now Daddy can mow at least half my yard. The other half still needs cleaning.

YES. I worked four stinkin' hours on only HALF MY YARD!! *sob*

Then last night when I got home I decided to take matters grass into my own hands weed eater and pulled out my Grasshog. (That's a Black and Decker battery operated weed whacker for those who've never had to do yard work. And btw, to those people? I hate you. Mostly 'cause I'm jealous.) I was all set and ready, pulled the trigger and got going and...what the crap?

The little black shield thingy by the cutting line flew off. Seriously, my Grasshog decided to play Frisbee with the black shield thingy and just tossed that sucker off. So I powered down, reattached and tried again. This time it threw the thing halfway across the yard.

Needless to say it took me about 30 minutes, a screwdriver and some worn out patience to get it firmly and properly reattached. And don't think it didn't cross my little yard work hatin' mind to just not do it after all that. But I did it anyway. Got a good swath of the highest parts (where Libby was sitting in yesterday's pics) trimmed before the battery died. Mostly they just got a little haircut off the top because a weed eater isn't supposed to have to hack through fifty inche thick and seventy inch high weeds.

When I finally put the Grasshog to bed and went in the house my arms felt like jelly. It took both hands just to lift a glass of water to my lips. And forget about cooking. I settled for a sandwich and called it supper. Still, even today my arms feel a little weak and wobbly. And the depressing part? I've still got a whole 'nother section in the front that I need to cut tonight.

And you wanna know a deep dark secret truth? It's times like this that I seriously wish I had a man in the house to do all that for me. And you know I gotta hate yard work to give up my remote just to have someone else deal with grass and limbs and sticks and twigs.