Yardwork

It's wonderful how much fuller my days are when I plan nothing. All I had on my list today was to go to the Humane Society--which didn't happen--and maybe go to the grocery store--which also didn't happen.

By the time Miss Chef left for work, I was sitting on the couch feeling sorry for myself for various reasons. But I knew that it wouldn't help to stay there, and Miss Chef had admonished Rosie to make sure I got off my butt and lived, or something to that effect.
Good dog!

I eventually found myself wandering outside, ostensibly with a plan to repot some houseplants. Somehow, this is what ended up happening:



I decided to try out the hedge trimmer Mom & Dad got me for my birthday (5 months ago...). When I took this picture, I thought I was pretty much done: we have 4 hollies in the front, but I hadn't really planned to work on more than one, and I had already rediscovered my shocking lack of upper-body strength as I worked to get this monster down to size. I had also already done these two bushes:


Yay! Now we can see out the kitchen window! I was pretty satisfied with what I had accomplished, but I was wondering how hard it would be to reach the top of the one closest to the front door, which had grown even more intimidating. (The truly intimidating thing is that Miss Chef had already attacked most of the hollies a couple of months ago, but they were still in need of...discipline.)

When I finally made myself quit, I almost had two matching shrubberies:
That's what I call "good enough." At least, until I head back out to trim the other two bushes, one of which I've been trying to reshape into something less round. I'm not sure I remember what my original goal was; there's a good chance it will end up looking just like these two. But that's a job/story for another day.

As for the trimmer, it was lovely to use. I felt like a sculptor. And I only cut the cord a little bit: Ha, ha, oops. Oh well, maybe a little electrical tape will fix it up.

Epilogue: I did also manage to get those houseplants repotted. Told you I had a busy day.

Editor's note: Please excuse any random spacing between paragraphs. There is something very fishy about Blogger's editing software, which seems to add and subtract empty lines somewhat at random.