Can we talk?

Weeding

         If there is one thing we can do at our house, it is growing weeds. We have chickweed everywhere. The soil my dad mixes with vermiculite yields chickweed and some weed I can't name, which grows consistently in the sterile pots I use for  herbs and begonias. Weeding the pots on the deck is a daily chore.

         Last weekend I weeded the vegetable garden again, and the outer perimeter, since it's a raised bed. The iris patch needs it again, but it's in back, too, so I haven't gotten it yet. Today, I did the mailbox out on the street, picked up broken branches from the shrubs and the yard, and weeded the area around the front patio. It's a large area to crawl around on your hands and knees.

         Now the flower pots are bad enough. But the yard also has vines and tree seedlings coming up where you don't want them. So you need gloves and a variety of tools to carry with you. I have to use sun screen and a hat to keep from looking like a lobster. There are also a number of things in the yard to surprise you. My dad is an elderly gentleman who won't give up, and forgets where he puts things. Or he plans to come back to it, but falls asleep, so it stays outside for a few days. You can find tools of all sizes, scrap metal, flower pots blown by the wind, buckets, hoses, and chemicals where you don't expect them. You just have to walk around. Sometimes he hangs things in the trees like pulleys or bungee straps. We must have a hundred screw drivers here: in the garage, the kitchen, the laundry room, his bedroom, the foyer, the covered entrance out front, the patio, the cars, the wheelbarrow, the back deck. I found one in the grass today and one in a flower pot.

         I've complained about pointing the lawn mowers away from the patio and walkways to avoid grass seed being thrown that way OR buying grass catchers to attach. But that's too much discipline. So pulling weeds by hand will continue to be a challenge. So will gathering up the tools and paraphernalia of the yard man. I'm calling it exercise.