Why I Hate Yardwork

"The Joy of Gardening"....Bah Humbug!
Our front yard is not large. It consists of three tiers on either side of the front stairs with a small patch of grass beyond the row of roses on the top tier. The middle tiers each have an azalea, a rose and some heather. The bottom tiers house daisies, succulents and a couple more azaleas. Reading this, it sounds pretty nice actually. The truth is...it's pretty overgrown. Okay, it's really overgrown. And I only mentioned the plants that are supposed to be there. (And the ones I know the names of.)
On occasion, I will go out and "clean up" the bottom tier on the right. For some reason, it's the easiest to deal with. There are a lot of little bulb plants there, in between the rest of the plants and if I accidental pull them out, I can just poke them back in the ground...not a big deal. The bottom tier on the left has a lot of this "ground cover" stuff that is a bear to pull out. I really hate the thought of dealing with it.
Yesterday, I thought I'd work in the yard for a little while. Starting on the bottom right tier...of course. (The lesser of the six evils.) I pulled out all of the dead stuff and popped up a few weeds. It looked better. Wanting it to go from "looking better" to "looking good" I decided to throw some bark dust over it. I also had planned to take a couple of potted plants from our back patio and put them in that tier...to fill in the blank spots. I went and got the shovel, ready to bark dust everything. Well...it dawned on me that it made no sense to do that and then dig the holes for the new stuff...so I decided to finish the planting first. I was getting ready to dig the holes...when I realized that it didn't make sense to plant something below the overgrown bushes that I had to trim in the second tier. It would just make trimming them harder...dodging around the newly planted flowers. I went back to the garage and got out the trimmers. I'm trimming away at the way-overgrown heather, azaleas and pretty red stickery bush and I'm making a mental note of how many different types of spiders we have living in our yard. Tons. Tons of spiders. Once the bushes are trimmed I got the little rake and raked everything out. Better. But now I can see how much Snow on the Mountain is there...and more bloomed out bulbs. So I sit on the second tier and start pulling the weeds and cleaning out the dead stuff. I have now been out there for hours. And I'm really missing our old neighbor Eunice. Eunice was a ninety something year old woman who had lived next door to us since I was a young girl. Her yard was perfect. She loved to work out there. And she would regularly come over to our house, ring our doorbell, asking if we minded if she weeded our yard...since she was out of things to do in her yard! Needless to say, we never turned her down. She now resides in a nursing home...and at 101...she still helps them with their gardens! What a doll! Well, I knew Eunice wasn't going to save me from what I had started...so I just kept going. Once the second tier was done...I started on the third tier. More weeds, more bloomed out bulbs, more spiders...and now...snails. Why did I ever start this? I had to take a break. Looking around, I decided that it looked very much like a F-Bomb (Flora Bomb) went off in our front yard. Although I had started out tossing the plants I pulled out into the yard debris bin...that became too tedious very quickly. So I just started tossing them on the sidewalk and the driveway...whatever was closer. "I'll sweep them up later..." was my thought. And it sure wasn't "later" yet.
After my break...I got right back to work. Picking and tossing, picking and tossing. The next thing I knew, I was singing a little song in my head..."Pick a little, toss a little, pick a little, toss a little. Pick, pick, pick, toss a lot, pick a little more. Pick a little, toss a little, pick a little, toss a little. Pick, pick, pick, pick, pick, pick, pick, pick!" (Sung to the tune of a song from The Music Man..."Pick a Little, Talk a Little.") That was it...the moment I knew I had snapped.
I finished the top tier. My husband came home from work and begged me to stop. "Honey, you're going to be sore!" But it was too late...I already was sore. Sore, tired, overheated, itchy and scratched up. He was a sweetheart and cleaned up after me...as he so often does. (It's the plight of anyone who marries a sanguine personality like me.)
I haven't been out to the front yard yet today. I'm afraid. Afraid that I've started something that will never end. Sure, I'll plant those new flowers out there. And I'll throw that bark dust around. But those weeds will be back. I just know it. And then...there's the other side. The three tiers that I didn't even touch yet...because they were in even worse shape. It's simply a never ending job. I hate a never ending job. And that's why...I hate yard work.