Road Trip Week, Part 1

I did reset the alarm to go off at 6:30 AM. Last night reminded me of the song from 1966, "I had too much to dream last night," by the Electric Prunes (no, I'm not kidding, here). I woke up tired and hurting. I do something these days when I am sleeping that hurts my shoulder. I think I turn over and lay on it or something.

Be that as it may, I got up, gathered up the garbage and took it out to the road. But then, while the coffee was making, I thought I could lie back down and grab a few winks.

Big mistake! I woke up after 8:00 AM and I have a 9:30 doctor's appointment in Mt. Clemens. So, I quickly shaved and showered and was on the road by 9:00 AM. I broke a lot of speed laws, but didn't get there until about 9:45 AM.

Once I got into the doctor's, he was thrilled with my progress. He said I should come back in eight weeks, but wanted my therapy to move on to strength rebuilding (oh, I know what that means, now they have a license to hurt me).

So, I got in the car and headed back home. I did make a pit stop at a McDonald's and bought a Quarter-Pounder with cheese meal (with extra salt for the French fries) and a Coke. Thus fortified, I drove back home.

Back home, I barely had time to regroup and get to my therapy session. But, I made it five minutes early. She did add a few new exercises, but still didn't have the official fax from the doctor, authorizing the change in regiment.

By the time I got home from rehab, it was after 2:00 PM and I was beat! The long drive to Mt. Clemens and back, along with the hour workout at therapy, has worn me out.

Now, normally, here's where you would read "so I took a nice nap!" But, I have a dilemma: It's a beautiful fall day outside. The sun is out for the first time in days and its 60 degrees F. So, as much as I would like that nap, I got stuff to do outside.

It's supposed to be even warmer tomorrow, so I thought I'd use Wednesday for cutting the grass/leaves. Today it was just grunt work.

First I went in the attic and got down the small tarp (that I used on the trailer two years ago). Without the old picnic table, I don't need that big tarp to cover the outdoor furniture.

In the front yard, I dug out all the grass around the little forsythia I bought and planted several years ago (it's not growing nearly as fast as its wild cousins in the back yard. I sprinkled a little fertilizer around the edge of the circle of dirt and then filled the circle in with wood chips.

I cut the wisteria down to the ground and pulled it off the front trellis. I also emptied the urn of it's dying plants and rolled it into the garage for the winter.

Then I cut down those three raspberry bushes I talked about this summer (I was eating the berries almost every day when they were in season). Since they were just growing wild in the lot next door, I decided to give them a proper home.

I got the wheelbarrow and dug them out. Then I wheeled them all the way from the front to the very back of the property. I pulled back the mulch in the rear garden and dug three holes. Then came the hard part: three trips back and forth from the house to the rear wall with a bucket of water each for the holes.

Next I replanted them, added some dirt and then put the mulch back over them. Once again, three more back and forth trips for water (my legs were killing me!)

Since I was already back there, with the wheelbarrow, I removed all the ties that held the tomato plants to the trellis and took the tomato plants out of the raised bed garden. The vines went into the compost heap. I'll pick up all the fallen tomatoes later and pitch them in the empty lot next door. If you put actual tomatoes in the compost heap, you end up with volunteer tomato plants in the weirdest places the next year!

I put away the wheelbarrow and shovel and turned on the hose to water the new grass yet again. I went in the house (finally), washed up and collapse on the couch.

I didn't nap, but I did rest for a bit until hunger (and the timer for the sprinkler) roused me. It was too late and I was too tired to "make" dinner, so I settled for a can of tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich. I watched a little TV, but went to sleep early on.