I Feel Braver With Gloves On

Well, lucky for you, you don't have to listen to anymore complaining from me about how unfair my life is.

Because we DIDN'T go to Oak Harbor today, which means I got to do yard work! It was a beautiful day, absolutely perfect. As soon as I got home from church, I grabbed my borrowed gloves and borrowed trowel, and borrowed trimmers, and I chopped up everything in sight.

Okay, well, I didn't trim EVERYTHING. I did a lot though. I don't think that Art and Joe gave much thought to their plants while they lived at the house.

Observation #1: Clearly, the plants haven't been tended to ONE IOTA in about two years.

Observation #2: Practically everything that grows on our yard has thorns. Why is that?

Observation #3: There ARE a lot of spiders in Washington! I remember people telling me that, but I never saw the critters, so I didn't believe it. Well now I know where they are. They're outside, on the ground, among the plants and grasses. Where they belong. At least they're not inside.

I saw many many spiders, mostly small and black, and no, I didn't kill them. They already looked distressed, since I messed up their habitats quite a bit. So I left them. With the exception of a large one. I didn't want that one reproducing and making more large ugly spiders to live around my house.

We have two unnameable bushes beside the carport. They are thorny, and apparently, have cute orange blooms on them in the spring (according to my landlady). If she turns out to be wrong, if there are no blooms, then I'm chopping it down completely next year. I will not tolerate large, thorny bushes that don't do anything.

We have one rose bush at the back of our house, and I pretty much trimmed it to about half of what it was. I felt bad, but the thing was growing to the ceiling! So I really hope it's okay.

I tried to even out/round out/clean up the rhododendrons. I can now see out my kitchen window, although not much more. I will probably have to take more off the top. The ones in the back of the house are huge, which is nice, except huge mean unmanageable. Especially one particular bush: it's a flippin tree! The thing is taller than our house, and the blooms are coming off of a trunk, not a nice soft branch. I don't know how I'm going to get at that one. The large trimmers weren't strong enough, and neither was I. Maybe I'll get Art to try. He's taller, and stronger.

Then I hacked at some tall weeds by a shed we have but don't use. All those were thorny too. I have three or four large piles of weed branches about the yard, which is unsightly, but once they dry out, I can burn them. Thank goodness we have a fire pit. I'm not done with the shed weeds, but I had been going nonstop for five hours, and I was tired and hungry, and very sore.

I accomplished quite a lot, and I'm a very happy woman. I don't know when I'll continue, maybe in a few days, if it's not raining. I'm not as anxious now about the yard. I got quite a start!

P.S. I saw a pill bug for the first time. I didn't know what it was until I looked it up, but I saw it curl up into a ball when I bothered it. It's a nifty little creature.