Friday, October 21, 2016

two chores


Did I say that we were having what passes for fall weather around here? How silly of me. It's been in the 90s all week. And humid. It was so hot last Sunday that I got overheated and dehydrated working for a couple of hours on the ditch in front of the shop with a machete needs sharpening and long handled nippers and stump killer and poison ivy poison spray. Yes, I know I don't use poison. It goes against everything I believe in but sometimes it is necessary like when it's the only way to get rats out of the walls of your house or get rid of the poison ivy so you can use the weed eater in the ditch. I'm very judicious in it's use, targeting only the plant I need to get rid of and only if more mechanical means won't work. Just goes to show there are no absolutes though, something else I believe in.


Anyway, I hacked away at the 4' tall grasses and other lower stuff that grows in untended places with the machete because the fire hydrant was barely visible so I thought it would probably be a good idea to clear at least around it. After about an hour my neighbor whose property shares the fence around the shop property came out to do his own lawn and came over and finished it in about 5 minutes with his weed eater. I was very grateful. He even brought me out a pair of gloves to wear. 


So I loaded up all the grass I had cut down in the truck and hauled it to the burn pile. Then I cut down the dozen or so small trash trees that had grown up around the gate, against the fence. and in the ditch with the nippers and hauled those to the burn pile. It's a steep ditch so we can't use a mower and poison ivy has colonized a section of it so that has to go before I can use the new gas weed eater that our son-in-law bought and leaves here with us when he doesn't need it. Now I just have to figure out how to start it and use it later, after the poison ivy has died. The last thing I need is to have tiny wet pieces of that plant spewed all over me. Nope.

When I realized I was as hot as I have been on a trip in Big Bend when I was doing the river guide thing in the desert with no river to go dunk in to cool off before I gave out and I had been sweating buckets, I quit and came in. By evening when my face was still red I figured I must have got some sun even though I had been wearing a hat. Monday was hot and sweaty in the shop and when it was time to go to yoga I went in to change clothes and looked at my yoga pants and bent over on the bed.

"I'm tired and I don't want to sweat any more,” I told Minnie who dogs my every step. Abby challenges us and makes us sweat.

I didn't go.

Tuesday and Wednesday were equally hot and sweaty days being outside doing cold work. So I decided that my leg was healed enough that I would get in the pool Thursday and scrub it down and empty it. I haven't been in the pool once this year. I put it up at the grandboy's behest and he and his friend did use it a time or two but mostly it has sat unused with the cover on and me checking the chemicals sporadically and finally not at all.

So guess what? Yesterday it was not hot and a cold front what passes for a cold front here has started blowing in and it was overcast part of the day and I took the cover off the pool and looked at that greenish water with all the leaves and mosquito larvae that had accumulated on the cover in it and...nah, I'm not getting in there. I used the skimming net to get as many of the leaves and stuff out as I could and pulled the plug. I got the sides scrubbed by leaning over as it emptied. This afternoon when it hits the mid 70s I'll get in the ankle deep water that's left and scrub the bottom and we'll dismantle it, rinse it off, and put it away.






10 comments:

  1. I am exhausted just reading this. Seriously, Ellen. Supposed to get down to 46 here tomorrow night. I really can't believe that.

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  2. I'm surprised you're able to hold a pen, hit the keys after all this. I'm taking the day off and rest from just reading this.

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  3. Anything with poison as its first name can be dispatched in any manner you chose. Poison ivy poisoned--a fine name for the pile of brown gunk you still must pick up with gloves.

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  4. Your title of "two chores" is one of the biggest understatements i've seen in a long time. That was enough labor for fleet of longshoremen.

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  5. Pools are a lot of work, which is why I swim at our local park district where someone else is responsible for cleaning.

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  6. hate that ivy. I was siphoning a pool with a friend and got a mouthful of ugly water and was surprised it didn't taste real bad. Then his wife pulled a squirrel out and I was ready to come down with the plague.Must have crawled under the cover.

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  7. You have lots of fall chores. That Poison Ivy is also dangerous to burn so be upwind!

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  8. Poison ivy is horrendous stuff. Parts of my mom's backyard were eventually so heavily colonized that we avoided going there entirely. Fortunately she sold that property so we're rid of it now! (An extreme solution, to be sure.)

    This confirms my suspicion that having a pool is more trouble than it's worth.

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    Replies
    1. re the pool. it depends on if you use it or not. I've never been one for pools much. I get cold easily in them and after about 30 minutes my feet start to cramp. I doubt I'll set it up next year and it may stay in the box until one of the grandkids has their own place or I sell it. living water I have no problem with...oceans, rivers, spring fed lakes.

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  9. I've been avoiding chopping down our daisy stalks - a patch that is, oh, 2 feet by 4 feet. I'm such a slacker! Of course, compared to you I will ALWAYS be a slacker. Fortunately I don't have high requirements of myself :)

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I opened my big mouth, now it's your turn.