Without me...

Tuesday, Firewood Man came to tend my yard.  Normally, I would be the most giddy about the mulching that took place.  However, he also brought rock to refresh my rock river that had all but disappeared with the construction on the back porch.  I just love, love, love my rock river.

I took over a dozen photos of all the mulching, but I don't really need them posted here on my rememberer.  This one photo will do to mark the day.

Monday, I had planned to take care of the final prep work for the mulching, but somehow I never go around to tackling those jobs.  So, whilst Tim was working in the front yard, I worked in the back yard.  Yes, I completely overworked myself, my failing body.

In the bed at the right of the garage, Tim dug out the retired, ancient rose bush.  It had died back last fall, and I thought pruning it to just a few feet (the bush was taller than the garage), might bring it back to life.  Whilst it did grow some, it flopped over onto the grass.  I tried to keep it going, but I need my yard to be as maintenance-free as possible.  So, he dug it out for me.

I, then dug out the stonecrop I had moved there.  I had split the original two plants into four and yet they still grew enormous.  I have had stonecrop before, but never that large.  They, too, flopped over on the grass, blocking the stepping stones to the back gate.  So, I pulled them from the bed and relocated some of them to the back of the garage on either side of the garage door.  If they live, then I will have some beauty to my view as I pull in and it will not matter how large they get.

That left a mostly empty bed, so I put in the remaining ferns from my clear-out of my fern bed.  If they survive the transplant (with a week or so sitting in a bag in the garage), then I will have a second fern bed.

With that work done, I went to the weigela that you can see in the photo above and raised the bricks curved in front of it.  They had sunk again from the dirt settling after the sewage pipe repair.

Next, I salvaged a bit more of the thyme from the Rose of Sharons bed (that we had planned to kill off) that was clear of weeds and moved it over to the bed beside the kitchen.  I have some daffodils in there, but three of the junipers I had originally planted there were "watered" to death by a certain Fluffernutter.  The bed had one at either end and a whole lot of nothing in between other than when the daffodils bloom.  Now, it has four transplants of thyme that, hopefully, will eventually overtake the expanse.

I was knackered, but then I went to all of those weeds and thyme directly beneath the Rose of Sharons and began to clear it out.  At first, Tim was going to just spray killer stuff all over it, but I thought it would be best to clear out as much as possible and then kill what comes up later.  In the past day or so, the Rose of Sharons have started dropping leaves, but before that having just a simple base of mulch was a very much welcome bit of visual rest over there.  The sight of weeds exhausts me ... and condemns me ... for being a poor homeowner.

Tim had to wait on me a bit, but he did mulch around me in the back yard as I was finishing.  And then he moved the variegated maple tree that I got in the spring with Mother.  All the new leaves that grew in turned brown on the edges again, as if they were being burned.  The tree just doesn't seem to be able to handle full sun.  So, we moved it to the other side of the yard in the partial shade of the ornamental magnolia.  I sure do hope it survives.  I worry about it.

After Tim left, I thought, since I was all sweaty and trembly, that I should try to work on the day lily bed, which needs thinning before mulching.  Instead, I showered, took some Tylenol, and went to bed.  I was so very exhausted.

Wednesday, I rested more and kept taking copious amounts of Tylenol to help the pain of pushing my body too hard.  Wednesday night, however, I started thinking and couldn't sleep ... didn't fall asleep until 11:00 AM (or there abouts) on Thursday.  I had planned on just resting more when I awoke, but my neighbor offered to run errands, so I dragged myself out of bed, dressed, and went to fetch some chairs, a prescription, and some garlic.

For the next time the family visits, I swapped out my table, as I wrote before.  After having the table for a few weeks, I went ahead and put in a leaf, so that it could be set up for eight people (the house can sleep 10 and the table can be expanded to 10 as well).  My mother offered to help fund the purchase of two more of my chairs, so I went looking for the best price.  I found them at Kirkland's, used a promo code, and then had them shipped to a local store for free.

Errand running was much, much, much harder than usual.  It is always a challenge for me, but I clearly have not recovered from the yard work.  It is my hope that the yard work I have done will help reduce future yard work, but that doesn't change the strain on my body now.

So, today, all I did was the laundry from giving Amos a bath (he got stinky from being outside on Tuesday) and changing my bedding.  Going up and down the stairs was difficult, but also kept triggering my asthma.  Yesterday and today have been marked by a lot of huffing and puffing and wheezing.

Napping.
Laundry.
More napping.

Tim mowed today, so the stepping stones are all edged at the moment.  My other goal for this fall is to raise them up with some sand, having not done so since placing them.  They have all sunk a bit too low.  I bought the sand for the project last spring.  I sure would like it completed before next spring.

Trying to use the shovel is almost laughable.  I have little control digging and even less stamina for doing so.  What I can do in the yard is less and less and less.  Tim was going to add more raised beds for me, however I asked him to wait on that.  As much as I want to grow more vegetables, I am not sure I can take on the extra work.  If my moved plants survived, I should have very, very little weeding to do, as most of the beds are ones that Tim can spray for me.  If the sedum I relocated to the planters on the front porch and if the new succulents like the solarium, I will have little work to do on my front porch as well.  Perhaps it is a pipe dream, but I do want to have GREEN growing things around my house that can mostly survive without me ... without my labor, my limited strength and energy.