August 03rd, 2023

Well I'm feeling pretty dang good about myself right now!  I finally got around to doing some long overdue yard work. LONG overdue. Like really really long.  Longitylong.  Wow!  What a slacker.

I'm not sure why I put it off so long.  While I didn't get it all done, and in fact, have only made the merest dent, it actually took less than two hours to fill three, count 'em, three garbage cans full to over flowing. So it's not as if it was a full day's worth of toting that barge and lifting that bale y'know? Still, tickled with my accomplishment.  

I think part of the reason I procrastinate about yardwork is the weather.  Naturally, the rainy season (that would be now) is when everything grows like mad and gets totally out of control. But that also means you have to pick and choose carefully when you undertake yardwork endeavors. I do not recommend waving around metal objects while standing in the rain during a thunder and lightening storm.  Just not a good idea in general. So, good rule there, no yard work in the rain.  

On the other hand,  this time of year it is unpleasant, to say the least to be outside when it's not raining.  It's hot, really hot and humid, really really humid which means it's buggy, really really really buggy. Yuck.  All things I try to avoid. Especially when exerting myself.  And yard work does require physical effort which, even on a nice pleasant day, means getting dirty and sweaty.   On a hot and humid day it's dirty and sweaty times a thousand! Million! Zillion!   Or heatstroke.  Also something to be avoided. 

So clearly the best idea is to tackle a job like this early in the morning on a day when it's A) not raining B) not threatening imminent rain C) Very Early  D) Very Very Early in the day.   So today I rolled out of bed before the sun was fully awake and into my hiking clothes  - becoz those clothes are already beat to crap - added ball cap, work gloves, sunscreen and I was out the door.  I grabbed a rake and my big old chonkers on the way.  

I particularly wanted to get the totally out of control stuff along the back fence, a little more under control.  Some previous owner of this house, for reasons unknown, planted some purple flowers along the back that honestly are more like weeds than flowers.  They have long tangledly stems and they weave themselves together until it's like a crazy quilt mat of purple flowers. And that would be fine, I suppose, except that seeds get dropped into the midst of the crazy quilt and then other things try to also grow there too.  Thing like baby trees.  And I really do not need a forest encroaching on the yard.  

I waded cautiously into the morass, my eyes zeroing in on a particularly tall specimen representing a great place to begin.  I have no idea what sort of tree it was planning to become, but Not On My Watch.  I know I sound like a monster, cutting down baby trees at a time when we all want to SAVE THE TREES. But Florida is a different sort of place.  With the least bit of encouragement, things grow.  An untended yard, in one season, becomes a rainforest.  And it's not just that the idea of living in a house surrounded by forest that we are opposed to.  It's the stuff that lives IN the forest too.

All sorts of critters live in the stuff I'm pruning and cutting and so forth.  Critters that object strongly to what I'm doing.  I'm speaking of spiders and snakes and wasps and well, heaven knows what else is lurking out there!  Spiders, snakes and wasps have important roles in our eco system and I agree that they should be allowed to exist.  I am even okay with them existing in our yard.  BUT they are not allowed to bite, sting or freak me out in anyway. Nope. Not allowed.

We have seen racoons, oppossums, mice, rats (shudder) bobcats, coyotes and several species of snakes in our yard when it's pristine.  If the yard gets completely out of control,  lord knows what else could be back there. Bears?  Panthers?  Wild Pigs? Triceratops?  Yikes!

Anyway, I was very brave but also cautious and, as I kept an eye out of anything I didn't care to see up close and personal,  I cut and chopped and raked and filled our  three extra garbage cans and then dragged them up to the front of the house, as I said.  And then I had to stop.  We only have the 3 extra cans. Once they are filled, I have to wait until next week after garbage pick up to do another section.  It looks better, it  does.  You can tell that I worked on it.  But it's also very obvious how much more there is to do.

Hopefully next week, I will continue to chop, cut, dig and rake and fill the cans again and the same the following week over and over until either the yard looks better again or the rainy season is over, whichever comes first.  Of course, in the same way that a bathroom is only clean until one person uses it, the yard work is only caught up until it rains again and then things grow again.  The very things I chopped down will sprout anew! ARGH!  It's frustrating sometimes and perhaps that is another reason why I put it off??

Perhaps a significant truth to why this chore has been postponed is that, quite honestly,  I am kind of lazy.  I'll admit it. I would rather read than rake.  I'd rather cut out cookies or biscuits than cut errant branches.  I prefer chopping vegetables to chopping foliage.   Still it needs to be done and now that I've properly kicked myself in the butt to get myself started, hopefully, next week, I will  get out there and tackle it again.  And then Again. And Again.

​It's either that or we learn to live like Tarzan and Jane.