Cold Spring

Stones for raised garden wall ordered this morning from Lowe's

Man, is it ever cold outside. This is one cold spring. 

I wasn't expecting it to be this cold when I returned from California a couple of weeks ago. 

Three weeks in a row we've had a Nor'easter tearing up the East Coast. Thank goodness, we didn't get any snow here in southern Delaware. The but cold bitter winds make going outside not comfortable. 

Yesterday I had a load of forty bags of mulch delivered. Last week I had a local landscaper edge out my flower beds. That was expensive. I decided not to lay out any more money and lay the mulch myself. I need the exercise anyway (I tell myself). 

This morning I ordered a skid of seventy stones to build a raised garden. Yes, I will build that wall. I need the exercise (I tell myself).  

I've always loved working in my yard. I hate painting but I could do yard work all day. I find it relaxing. But as my body ages, I have found I can't keep up with all that needs to be done.

Me with my hired landscaper (still smiling before the job was completed and paid for)

Four years ago I hired a local Mexican landscaper to help. At first his prices were competitive. He charged by the job. This year he changed his pricing and charged by the hour. Thirty dollars an hour. Yep, you guess it. He charged me for thirty-six hours but no way did his crew work thirty-six hours. And his "crew" often existed of just one guy. I hate situations like this. I confronted him about the hours but didn't get too far. He  speaks limited English. His understanding of English is selective. If I say something he doesn't want to hear, he acts like he doesn't understand me. But if I say something he wants to hear like "I'll pay you $1,000 to edge my lawn", he has no problem. I'm not a good bargainer.  I prefer to pay by the job. If it's a good job, and I consider it worth it, I'll pay. If I think I'm being overcharged, I don't use that person again. I won't be using Miguel again. He did do a good job, but overcharged. There, I feel better now after this rant. One of the reasons I keep a blog, so I can vent.

Now, I'm waiting for that sweet spot of weather between the crisp coolness of spring and the muggy hotness of summer so I can lay that mulch. Hope all that exercise can cause me to lose a few pounds. 

Yard Work - I Need Help!

Jordan - my possible new help to maintain my yard

I love yard work.

From the time I was a little kid growing up on 120 Washington Avenue in Downingtown, Pennsylvania I wanted my own yard.  I envied my fellow classmates who lived in houses that had their own back yard.  We lived in a second floor apartment in a large, cheap ($22 a month) apartment building in the white trash poor section of town.  That apartment building is still there and it is still the white trash poor section of town.

120 Washington Avenue, Downingtown, PA - no back or front yard here

I got my taste for yard work from mowing the lawns of some of my customers on my paper route.  I also pulled weeds from my Great Aunt Grace's garden.  I've always loved working outside, with the fresh air and my hand in the warm earth.  I can still remember the fresh spring time smell of buttercup flowers as I was on my hands and knees pulling dandelions out of my Aunt Grace's backyard garden.

Of course I did have my taste of working in the garden which was my father's corn field.  My brothers and I spent many a hot summer day hoeing and weeding eight to twelve rows of corn.  But I never considered this yard work.  I considered this WORK.  Besides, it was for my father and it didn't count.  Slave labor.

My father and brother John at my pop's corn field - see how thrilled John is?
After we pulled our required rows of weeds, we were treated to ice cream.
Bribery always sometimes works with kids.

Our family didn't get our own house with land until the summer of 1958.  I was 16 years old and soon to enter my senior year in high school.  I was too caught up in my pubescent adolescent years to have much interest in yard work at that age.

After high school I joined the Army.  When I got out of the Army it was back to apartments again for me.  Ub 1964 I met Bill (my spouse of 47 years this year) and, of course, moved into his apartment in New Jersey.  After a year or so of that apartment me moved into an apartment in Philadelphia, PA.  Still no backyard or front yard for me.  Finally, in 1979 we bought a small row house in center city Philadelphia and I finally had my own backyard, albeit a very small postage stamp back yard.

Our Philadelphia "backyard" - not really 

We lived there for eleven years but I never had much satisfaction from that backyard which really wasn't more than a location for potted plants.

It wasn't until we moved to East Brandywine Township outside of Downingtown, PA in 1980 that I finally had my own "backyard";  all 6.875 acres of it!  Needless to say, I had plenty of backyard then and had a wonderful, interesting and time consuming time.  Remember the old adage "Be careful what you wish for?"  Well, I had more than enough yard work.  Me, the deer, and the bugs, and everything.

Our East Brandywine Township backyard - too much - salad for the deer

Fast forward to today.  I have the ideal suburban backyard.  Our backyard now is real.  It is in the back of the house.  I can plant whatever I want to and don't have to worry about deer eating my plants nor neighborhoods kids picking my flowers like I did in Philadelphia.

So what is the problem now?  I am too old for all this work!

This morning as Bill and I were driving back into our development back from morning errands, I saw a young man working outside my neighbor's house.  Now I've been thinking about this for quite a while.

HOW ABOUT HAVING SOME HELP?

Bill getting ready to decapitate the Pampas grass yesterday

Yes!  I need help.  I admit it.  I'm seventy years old now and after spending four hours yesterday cutting back one Pampas Grass plant, I decided I needed help.  Preferably the help of a young, muscular, healthy man.  Hey, you can't blame me can you?

I called my neighbor and asked her if I could approach her Landscape Guy (one has to be careful about things like this one does).  She said "Sure!"  I took a walk up and introduced myself.  I was greeted with a firm (masculine) handshake.  Good first step!  The young man (most men are "young men" to me these days) introduced himself to me.  I explained my situation.  He said he would be glad to come down to my place and check out my "situation" (don't even go there).

So here I await.  I have succumbed.  I am now the Old Man who needs help maintaining his property.  Has it really come to this?  Oh yes it has.  This is just another milepost on my Journey In Life.

Some people go to the opera, some go to the races, other go on a cruise.  Me?  I find my solace working in a pastoral backyard with just the birds, plants and fresh air for company.  I don't have to deal with the vagaries of people and their whims and demands in this sylvan setting.  Only me and Nature.  The way it was meant to be.