I was breaking up soil for my new flower beds with a hand watchamacallit - something you step into the ground, then twist? I twisted and a-turned to my hearts content and today my body reminded me that most of my usual upper body exercise is typing on a keyboard...oy!
Oh, and my pants got muddy from sitting on the ground.
Gardening is dirty, painful work, I tell ya.
*scrapes dirt out from under fingernails*
Oh, my arms are a-hurting...!
Yep, but very much worth it.
Yes, indeed. But the results are SO very worth it.
Carla
Wishing I was outside ....
I was digging yesterday too.I can't believe the chunks of clay I got with a spade...It is hard to believe organic matter can break it up eventually.(or does it?) Do gardeners do sculpture on the side?
LarissaH, too bad the body can't keep track of time.It is easy to get carried away.
If you cut up the chunks with the shovel and mix them with organic matter, they will brake up, I promise.
My body has kept up with time. It's telling me every day how old I am! lol but not lol
How true. Here's to aging gracefully....
I had back surgery last year and another back problem is rearing it's head again on the other side this year. I want more than anything to be out in the garden on my knees getting my hands dirty and breaking fingernails again!! It is a beautiful day here today, except for the wind! MY DH bought a long handle adjustable pair of loppers and I bought a garden rocker seat last week. Today I went out and was able to sit and lop off the foliage of most of my flower beds in the front that needed it. I could also stand up and extend the handles to reach the ground without bending over. I can't pick up the trimmings, so in the 45 mile west wind it might end up in Arlington at your house Josephine!! DH is going to help clear it away when the wind dies a bit .....Anyway I felt so good to be useful again in the yard, but my hands and forearms are aching since I have only had exercise on the keyboard this winter too! LOL! I only have one year plus change until I can retire and have more time to take it slow in the yard. It is what I want to do as my hobby later and I will not be detered from my goal!!! Down with the aches and pains, take a couple Advil and get back out there!!
At age 65 I finally broke down and bought a tiller I could manage....I still hard trouble getting out of bed the next morning, but it sure beats working with hand tools to do the same chore....
Hooray for Sheila!!!! that is the spirit girl!!! It is extremely windy all right, but if your trimmings reach my house I'll just compost them.
I am sorry that you are having trouble with your back again, bless your heart, you already went through enough last year. Maybe it won't get as bad as the last time.
Josephine.
I am glad you found a way to garden without straining your back. I have seen long handled reachers at Home Depot, (last year anyway)A friend of mine who had a stroke,bought the Hennisen circlehoe that allows him to weed without damaging other plants or bending over.. He swears by it, but I have never actually seen it.
Is the sky brown from all that dust winding around?
Wasn't the sky horrible this afternoon? I don't know if the rest of the wind advisory area had it as bad as DFW did, but it was horrible here. I was typing a email about 2:30 and had just come in from outside a bit earlier, I looked out the back door and the sky had a dusty yellow glow. I heard about 60,000 people lost electricity from the winds. We weren't in the outage, but did have switch over temp on-offs. The winds were up to about 60 at times and DH has breathing problems so we stayed inside until the air cleared this afternoon.
Tomorrow I will try using a small rake, and the DH bought a lightweight blower for leaves left in the flowerbeds. Hopefully it won't blow my mulch away.
Bettygail, what type tiller did you buy? My co-worker was going to get her a Mantis that was very light weight this weekend.
Well, we were part of the ones that lost power, it went off about 1 o'clock and we just got it back.
We were at the shop till 5 and didn't know it was off, then they said they didn't know how long it would be, but thank God they just finished fixing it, we were out there applauding and calling the guy our hero, which he was.
Josephine.
I've lived in North Texas for over 12 years, and never saw a dust storm before. I kept looking in all directions trying to find the fire causing all this haze! Bizarre. And disapointing, I was looking for some sun today.
I hope it's sunny tomorrow, because I want to do more digging! Advil is my friend. ;)
My DH is in Oklahoma City with his parents for the weekend and he said they had one of those awful red dust storms. I remember a few of those in my childhood growing up there. My DS goes to school at Tech and has probably had one of those extra special West Texas dust storms with 1" visibility. (anyone from Lubbock on tonight?) Larissa and Sheila - I'm counting on what they say - gardening is exercise! I am so sore today after weeding and planting yesterday - and I walked and went on a birding field trip today - oh my - now I'm paying the price... At least it was fun to be back out again!
Yes it was, I hope today will be a better day for it. We had to clean the Koi pond skimmer net twice yesterday, the leaves just kept blowing in from the flower beds, etc. Usually they don't blow around after landing there and having rain. Everything was off the trees, so we had taken the leaf net off last week. But with the 60mph winds they were being whirled around big time.
Glad you got power back on so quickly Josephine, I heard on the news a lot were still without.
Larissa, you should be able to get sore, but might want to bundle up first part of the day, it is cold out now.
Bookworm, we tried to go down to the little park from the house yesterday morning to take pictures of some waterfowl that is there, and got into the traffic from the Cowtown Marathon and turned around. We forgot about how far out it came our way. Hope you got some good shots on your bird trip.
Whew - 60 mph winds! You probably had leaves from miles and miles around. We had a very windy and rainy birding trip - today looks to be beautiful here. Sun, 70 degrees and low humidity! I was in an Audubon Society birding class at Brazos Bend State Park, I'm a beginner - but we saw so many kinds of birds - many that I'd never have seen without a teacher to help spot them. I haven't started taking photos of them yet - that will be when I can figure out how to handle the bird book and the binoculars! lol...
Have you discovered the Bird Watching Forum yet? Here is a link if not. http://davesgarden.com/place/f/birdwatching/all/ It just started up this year, but has really taken off with the winter migration and extra long cold spell. It has helped me cope since I can't get out and dig in the garden yet.
Sheila - I'll head over there for sure. Thanks for telling me! I've been offline with internet problems - but that will be one of my first stops when I catch up with my threads!
I've been hanging out over at the bird watching forum myself. What a treat...! Some real nice folks and some fantastic photos... :)
Melanie
Goin' there now, Sheila - and Melanie. We have the greatest birding in Texas! My Audubon class met some nice folks from Mass. at Brazos Bend last weekend. They've come to Texas every year for the past four years and travel from south Texas to the Houston area - and would be ending their trip on the Katy prairie (grasslands) before going home. It was fun to meet people who love Texas - and the birds here.
Oh and my arms are sore again for sure - we had some wonderful afternoons her over the weekend!