Working My Butt Off!

These days are full of wear ‘n tear on my body! I’ve been so busy for the past couple of days that I haven’t spent much time inside the house. This year has brought a season of spring that has worked very hard to catch up on rainfall we’ve lacked in this area of East Tennessee for a few years, now. Has its good points – and maybe some not-so-good points. If only we could enjoy all this rain after everyone gets all those things taken care of that Mother Nature carries a time-clock for with stern demand. My days now begin at 4am with getting Dwayne off to work. Yesterday was no exception. I was on a full run mode until we headed off to bed. And we were even up past our bedtime of 8:30pm because of the NASCAR Nationwide race. Dwayne tried staying up to watch it. I was drying lettuce and - no… you don’t understand. I had three large dish drain boards piled with lettuce from the garden that had to be washed – dried – and stored! Did the same for a sink full of spinach before blanching it and setting it up to freeze before bagging it to put away in the freezer, too. By the time I headed to find my pillow – I had completed a digital scrapbook page; loaded the dishwasher with a few things that filled it completely and enough to get it going. Dealt with the cat and dog’s usual morning routine. I sent about six buckets of weeds to an early demise and laid mulch of some kind over those areas I worked. Made a cake! Picked spinach and lettuce. Supper was ready about a half hour after Dwayne got home from work. Dealt with the spinach and lettuce before cleaning the kitchen – getting the coffee set up – and double checking to see if I had forgotten anything. Weeds have been the greatest issue! Bugs are coming in second – credit goes to all the rain! Dwayne took two of his days off to help me with the fight I was losing out in our veggie garden. Poor thing – that male ego got taken for a challenge. He really had trouble keeping up with me. But I think he got a good taste of all I’ve been going through while trying to deal with it all by myself! Amazing how you discover muscles that went to sleep during winter! As for myself – the only relief I get is by getting up and getting out there to work all the pain and stiffness out as soon as the dew has dried from all the foliage! Making the pitchers of iced-tea have moved from one each day to two. And that’s only when Dwayne’s working at the hangar; otherwise – at least, three! We’ve begun buying a few bags of cedar mulch each payday. Six bags looked good in the bed of the truck when we loaded them at Home Depot. Somehow – the load just seemed to shrink down to half as impressive once I began preparing areas to get it all laid down. But I think two more trips like the first one should get us set. As for the veggie garden – I spend each day tackling the weeds in areas before spreading thick blankets of hay for mulching all the hills and mounds. It all sounds so simple, easy and hardly any work at all when you lay it all out in print. But let me tell you – I have been busting my butt! I’m carrying a kitchen towel around with me by 1:30pm – to catch all the sweat just pouring down my face and neck. I keep hoping the good in that will be losing a couple more pounds each week. Ta! If I had to compromise – I’d be happy if all the aches and pains would just go away. We have been trying to get hay cut for over three weeks now. We’ve been doing one or the other – waiting on the rain to quit – or – waiting for everything to dry out! Yesterday was finally that big day of relief! The hay’s been cut and now drying. Hopefully – the weather will allow it to be raked and baled within the next few days. Either way – I’m looking at another day of doing much of it – all over again!