This Is Getting Ridiculous

OK, so I'm not much of a gardener. Or for any kind of yard work, really. In the 18 years that Matt & I have been married, more things have died in my various yards than have flourished. One year, I planted a tomato plant that yielded one tomato. One. And it wasn't ripe yet when the frost hit, so I had to dig it up and bring it inside to finish ripening. It was a good tomato. A lot of effort for one tomato, though.

However, I'm apparently awesome at growing weeds.

Well, it was a rainy summer morning here today, and I didn't have much on the agenda, (and it's starting to look like our house is abandoned), so I decided to bite the bullet and go pull some weeds.

Let's just start by showing you what kind of "yard" I have:

This is the duplex we live in and attempt to manage the property for.

This picture was taken in April, while the weeds were apparently still lying in wait for the fun to begin. We don't have a "yard" really, there's a little postage stamp of green that we mow once a month or so, but for the most part, we have these terraces.

When we moved in, 3 years ago, the terraces had some neglected bushes that apparently were supposed to be cut back every winter, and hadn't been for many, many years. They were out of control, so we spent the following 2 summers killing all the vegetation in the terraces with the thought that we could plant something new there. Something VERY low maintenance, but pretty. Maybe we could do something like the business across the street has... it always looks so nice.

Nice shade trees, day lilies, those lavender spiky things, and in the fall, beautiful mums.

This summer, we hardly have any remnants of the original bushes, but the weeds have taken over with a vengeance.

So I went down in the terraces to pull weeds today, in a sour frame of mind.

"Why CAN'T I be good at music and lousy at yard work? Who says you have to be good at everything?.... grumble, grumble grumble...."

After an hour, I surveyed the work I had done...

empty terrace

pile of pulled out weeds

...and how far I had to go.


(our property line ends about where that tall evergreen is WAY back there...)

How discouraging!

"This is beyond me. There's just no way I can do this on my own. I'm going to have to try to figure out how to budget in a landscaper... This is ridiculous.... grumble... grumble... grumble."

You might notice the enormous thistle in the foreground of this picture. I'm estimating it at about 4 feet high and 3 feet wide.

Here's a closer look:

Yeah.... AND the bees thought it was great.

Well, I tackled it. I had to use a variety of implements to get the job done. It's not easy demolishing something you can't touch. I got in with a long-handled shovel, knocking it down at the base, then was able to stomp it into submission before violently severing the stalks from their root system with a hacksaw. Next, I had to figure out how to get it into a yard waste bag!

Anyway, I got the job done, and though I wasn't in a much better mood, I did have a sense of accomplishment.

take THAT, you bitter root! (and some Round Up too)

...that is, until I looked at how far I have to go.

Tomorrow's task: another 2 hours. However far it takes me.

So what's the point of all this ranting? I learn a lot about myself as I do yard work (besides the fact that I hate yard work).

Things like,

• ignoring weeds is like ignoring sins. They only get bigger.
• somewhere along the line, someone was thinking ahead, and laid some landscape fabric under all those rocks. The weeds are MUCH easier to pull because they can't put down deep roots. It's kind of like laying a foundation of faith for generations to come. I'm thankful for praying grandparents.
• Often times, God has something to teach you through the things you dislike the most. Where do I need to grow? Let's start with daily discipline... if I had been out picking out weeds every day since that first picture in April- instead of just once- things wouldn't have gotten out of hand.
• and sometimes, an insurmountable task is really a possibility, you just have to take it on and not quit. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.