Fall Clean Up

It was about time I did something about the sorry little plot I like to call a garden in my back yard. The plants left behind by the animals were dried to crisps and the seeds were mostly done dropping for next years parsley and dill. Most of the clean up was quick and easy. I'll turn over the soil after a few more days. I sprayed some weeds I'd battled all summer with a weed killer, so I'll give it a few days to work.

Then I looked over to the flower garden. There were some out of control weeds there too, waiting to be pulled. Got that taken care of. There were hundreds of twigs from the oaks waiting to be removed. The squirrels provide more little twigs every day. I didn't begin to clear out the acorns that have begun falling into the garden. But I did get some overgrown hosta divided and tiger lilies removed . They were becoming nuisances to their neighbors.

Then I remembered the forsythia needed to be pruned back just a little to keep away from the neighbor's garage. I wanted to be very careful about this. If new branches were cut I'd lose next year's blooms. So I crept back behind there to get a good look all around.

What should I find back there but a huge weed. It was about an inch in diameter where it grew from the ground, taller than me and covered with ripe burrs ready to snag any deer that might get close to it. In an unparalleled display of acting first and thinking later, I tried to uproot it. I succeeded in raining thousands of burrs down upon myself -- hair, shirt, shorts, socks, shoes, all over.
By the way, I did not even succeed in loosening the soil around the roots. So I trotted out to the garage for my shears. Walking in burr covered clothes served to drive the burrs further into my clothing and make them itch against my skin. But the worst part was that they looked like bugs. I kept spotting them clustered all over myself and thinking they were bugs. Countless times I reminded myself-- they are not bugs. Its a good thing too, else I'd probably still be running around the back yard screaming.

Finally I hacked through the stem with the shears and got that big bully into a garbage bag. Next I had to figure out how to get rid of the burrs. Thankfully the Artist could fetch my bathrobe for me. I wonder how many times I'll need to launder that outfit?

Then I got myself into the shower. You may have heard teenagers take long showers. Today I probably had them all beat. I lost count of how many times I washed my hair. I just kept going until I no longer saw burrs rinsing out to the tub. When the steam cleared from the clock I learned more than half an hour had passed!