I use the term Flower Beds very losely here. If I was being more descriptive, I would say that they are in all actuallity a desolate stretch of lost hopes and dreams. Where once promising ferns and hollys came in hope of a better life only to find the local native weeds were not in the mood to share thier land. The Jamestown that settled in my backyard Flower Beds are lost for ever, over taken by the wild and harsh nature that is my poor gardening skills.
But I never claimed to having a green thumb or the ability to grow anything at all. It stems from thier intense dislike of my poor fung-shui skills and from my fact that anything that is grown cannot taste as good as anything that is born. I am sure I am PETA's favorite blogger.
So to be honest with you, I am not sure what I was thinking when I built my flower bed 18 months ago. In my mind, which can be quite like a three ring flea circus, I envisioned my family on our back porch. We were having dinner in a serene flower environment while my daughter quielty quoted Shakespear. I would explain to her that yes honey, true love is worth everything. Shall we start the Great Gatsby or do Palendromes? They are so cute when they are geniuses.
But that was not to be as I suck. I suck big donkey balls. I am not bothered by this fact. What I am bothered by is the massive amount of weeds that are currently in my Flower Beds of dispair, turning my dream of a little Doogie Houser into a nightmare of Rita the trailer living tornado victim. Don't mind the Mumu folks, it's the only thing that will fit.
I knew that this had gone on far enough, it was finally time to weed myself. I had had my beds weeded once before. At the time, I paid someone else to do it. Don't judge my laziness, judge my problem solving ability. It was worth it when I brought in professionals to make it look like it was supposed to.
But I cannot do this again, mainly because I am ashamed that I have not done any upkeep since shelling out the cash to do it the first time. Currently my flower bed is nothing short than a rain forest where you will need a couple of porters with machette's to hack you way through to the actual intended plant that is there. That, and my mother in law was coming into town and I know that she would lay some quiet judgement down on me.
She tries to be very subtle with it at least, so that's appreciated. Yes, I get it, I am a bad home owner and should sell off any assets I have right now and move in with you because that is the only way that I can survive. She'll say things like "I'll help you weed." which I know is a lie. She won't really help me weed, she'll just help for ten minutes the go find something to do with my wife. While they are gone, I will be sweating my ass off wondering where all my help went. I live for the day that my kids are old enough to do this shit so I won't have to. I have no guilt about this. My dad had me mowing at 5 years old, true story. I finally understand why.
So I dove into the flower beds of death this weekend to finally get that perfect backyard that my daughter could play in. I had 2 garbage bags, one glove for the right hand and my Ipod. I could have used a pill for denage fevor but the drug store was fresh out.
It was as craptacular as I thought it would be. First I had to decide where in the hell to start. When the entire area looks like a nuclear blast site, where do you go? The middle, that's where. I figured that was where my best chance of finding lost Inca Gold might be. And I was not completly alone, I did have at least 3 helpers. My boxer, Kahn and his good friend, the Fat Belly Newt. I appreciated thier efforts. They would try to eat a few weeds but then decided to pee on them instead. This would mean that later I would have to root around in thier urine, it's good being superdad. So they got locked inside the house.
My last helper was Charlie the Super Fly. I have never seen a fly like this and I admit, I wanted nothing short of his destruction. He would gently hop from my shoulder, to my nose, to my other shoulder and then on my ear. Every time I would swat at him, he would just move 2 inches and continue to plague me. By the end of it, I wanted to dunk my head in a bucket full of raid just to teach him a lesson.
I had also decided that I would not try and save any flowers that may have been planted and overgrown. Collateral damage, it hurts but it was necessary. My wife asked me if I was able to save any of them. I grunted No but offered no explanation. I do this my way baby.
So I bent down, plumbers crack in full view, cranked my Ipod to some White Zombie and started my expedition. Soon I had almost a small area where I could sit without Java the Jungle Weed poking me in the face. I was lucky in the fact that atleast most of the 3 foot high weeds were easy to pull although I think I took out most of the dirt in the actual bed itself as it was attached to the roots. Fuck it, as long as it is done.
Halfway through a bug flew down my ass, via the plumber's crack. I screamed like a girl.
But I pressed on, after dropping trow in my backyard and running around a little bit. I made my belt extra tight, learn from your mistakes kids. Then I noticed the just over abundance of bugs here. I realized that I may have mistakenly come across the annual backyard bug convention that is held here and they were not please that we were open for renoventions.
I swear to you, I couldn't even identify half of what those fuckers where. 8 legs, 10 legs, flying, not flying, albino--it was a whole society that I was rooting up. But screw it, I am Gozer the Gozerian, destroyer of worlds and I pressed on. I found a lost pygmy tribe that sent arrows and spears my way but luckily I had a guy in an airplane on the river and was able to escape.
With all these bugs I did the only thing that I know how to do as the male and protector of my family. 1. I didn't tell my wife about them because she would absolutely freak out and make us move and 2. I killed them all. Or atleast as my one gloved hand could find. Eventually I got tired of bringing death and destruction and went back to just weeding again.
Most bugs don't really creep me out which is why I suppose that Hossmom keeps me around. However, I got the distinct impression that what I really was doing here is digging around in bug shit. That creeped me out. Ok, look, I am already chief poop coordinator around here, do we really have to add bug crap to the list?
3 hours I was out there. 3 hours of sweating and grumbling. My Ipod ran out of juice. The back porch was littered with the remains of my war, weed bodies every where. I could finally see the bottom of my flower bed. I stank and I stank bad. There was no way I was getting smooches after this. I was finished weeding, with the exception of two places.
One corner of the bed housed an ant colony the size of Nebraska. I stumbled upon it with my sandels. Being the univited guest, I was quickly shown the door. And by a tree I found an unkown spider. I tried to kill it but by this time my one glove had lost most of it's fingers in a series of weeding mishaps. Good men, there memory will live on. So I decided not to tempt fate and get bit by the Black Widow, because I assume that any spider that I don't recognize is a black widow.
I finally did clean up with my friend Charlie the Superfly. I filled 4, 30 gallon trash sacks full of weeds. Do the math, that is a 120 Gallons of weeds. My gardening skills know no bounds.
My daughter now has a place to play outside, provided that she makes friends with the black widow. I will gather all the Chaucer and Shakespear in the house and begin living the dream. We will start by quoting the preamble of the Decleration of Independence and having an opening ceremony.
All the bugs of the backyard will attend.
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