Garden Wars Episode III... The Demise of the Weeds

You know what they say about good intentions and where they lead you... I've had the best of intentions for the last few weeks to finish that blasted garden. My intentions have not however given me the needed inspiration to go and accomplish that.

Today I was looking at plants out in the garden center at work and I decided that nothing would inspire me to finish like having the plants right there sitting next to the garden. So I picked out my tomatoes and herbs, and then Nancy gave me some other starts, zucchini, cucumbers, and delicata squash.

I mentally mapped out a timeline for how it was going to play out when I got home this afternoon. My plan was to get home, change into grubbies, and hit the garden hard. I figured I'd need 2 hours to finish pulling the 1'x2' section of weeds that was left, and then to turn it all over, break it up, and get it ready to plant.

The best laid plans, huh? I got home, and received a message from my sister that completely sidetracked me. So I got stuck on the computer for a few minutes trying to find a new phone for Matt since his is broken, and then I had to boot myself out of the chair before I settled in to an evening of playing games. I changed and gathered up my gloves and tools and headed out there.

I arrived at the garden, and saw to my dismay that my alleged 2 square feet of weeds was actually more like 9 or 10 square feet. I started yanking weeds, digging with the shovel, and hauling them by clumps to my wheelbarrow. (Interesting side note: If you fill a wheelbarrow with weeds and let it sit for 2-3 weeks getting rained on, when you dump it out, it will smell REALLY bad! And the smell will not fade quickly.) I emptied my wheelbarrow and went right back to work getting those insidious weeds out of there.

I made pretty decent time removing the weeds and then started moving on. I picked up my shovel and began turning the dirt over in big clumps. When I was about halfway through turning the garden over a thought occurred to me. "I'm going to have to break these big clumps up somehow." At this point, I started seriously considering hopping in the truck, driving back to Blaine, and getting a tiller from the store. I finished turning the ground over, and then surveyed my arsenal of gardening tools. My eyes landed upon our trusty hoe and I grabbed it. I began taking out all my aggressions of late on these clumps of dirt.

Actually Obnoxious Binocular Lady should be given credit for about a quarter of my garden. I just kept recalling things that ticked me off and put them into each swing of the hoe. By the time I was 2/3 of the way through the garden, my hoe was broken. I went to the shed and looked to see if we had another one, but we didn't. I did find a digging bar.

Again, I must digress a bit... my eyesight is truly truly terrible without corrective lenses. However, and I didn't need my eye doctor to confirm this diagnosis, my hindsight is 20/20!

Ok, back to my garden... I took the 6' digging bar out to the garden and decided to break up the clumps with that. It's a very effective tool at breaking up ground, but if you have 2 bad shoulders, you might want to use a different tool to break up giant clumps of dirt. After about 3 clumps my shoulders were protesting loudly and calling me names not fit to repeat. I decided that perhaps stopping to put the head of the hoe back into the handle every couple minutes wasn't so inconvenient after all.

I finished hoeing the ground and looked at it again. There were still small clumps everywhere. I was starting to get a little discouraged and I looked once again to my tools. I picked up the Garden Weasel and told it that it was my only hope. I started Garden Weaseling the area, and found to my delight that it's a wonderful tool and it broke up the little clumps and had the previously hard-packed weed-infested ground looking like a tilled garden with reasonably little effort.

I then grabbed my rake and gave the whole garden a once-over to remove any straggling clumps of weeds and grass. Finally the moment I'd been longing for had arrived, it was time to plant!!

In fairly short order I had 4 tomato plants in their cages, 2 cucumber plants nestled in their spots, the squash happily ensconced near the strawberries, and the zucchini (after deciding that it needed to move from one end of the garden to the other) planted in a spot where it hopefully will not stage a hostile takeover of the strawberries.

I emptied my pots of the detritus of last years herbs, and the weeds that had happily planted themselves in there. Then I mixed up the dirt and planted my herbs. I grabbed my Preen weed preventer and my Sluggo slug killer, and liberally applied both to the garden.

As I was planting my tomatoes I was thinking of the movie Steel Magnolias where "Wheezer" grows tomatoes even though she hates them because she's a Southern woman and that's what she's supposed to do. I don't really like tomatoes unless they are turned into something else, and yet here I'm growing them in large quantities. Then I remembered the night my mother forced me to eat zucchini and my poor sister ended up cleaning up the projectile vomit that ensued. I had to laugh at myself for growing things in my garden that I not only dislike, but that in fact make me vomit. I do love zucchini bread though, so that's how I'm rationalizing my decision.

I decided to call it a night, after less than my allotted 2 hours had elapsed. But I had to convince myself that I will return on Thursday to try to get the last of the weeds that have woven themselves into the strawberries.

I've got them on the ropes now, I've got to strike while the iron is hot...

All I can say tonight is that I'm truly grateful that the Good Lord in his infinite mercy created Trader Joe's and 2 Buck Chuck!

Things that make me go GRRRRRRR!!!!

These are a few things that have happened in the last couple of days that make me shake my head in wonder...

First of all, why would a man go into a public place and use their restroom and not close the door? I don't care if he's standing up, and his back is to the door... CLOSE THE DOOR!!! Occasionally we have to remind Mason to close the door, but he's 4 years old. By the time you are in your mid-sixties, maybe older than that, you should have learned to close the restroom door because the rest of the world doesn't want to share that moment with you.

So I left work, still fairly disgusted by the guy that didn't close the bathroom door, and was on my way to get my pizzas from Papa Murphy's (Relay for Life Fundraiser) and I pulled into the parking lot by the grocery store and a car pulled out, from a stop sign, in front of me (I'd like to note that I did not have a stop sign, and had the right of way) and proceeded to crawl along in front of the grocery store and then come to a stop. I realized that the car contained an elderly couple who had a handi-cap parking permit hanging from their rear-view. The woman then stops in the fire lane to let her husband out. I patiently waited behind her while he slowly made his way out of the car. The car behind me went around us and turned down a parking lane. Then another car came along, passed me, and almost caused a slow-speed head on collision with a car traveling legally in their own lane trying to exit the parking lot. Still waiting patiently, ok, trying to wait patiently, I sat there. Finally the woman starts to move her car forward again, and I was once again happily en route to my pizzas. The lady stops again about 30' further down the fire lane. This time I decided that I was done being patient, so I drove around her, giving her the angry "WHAT THE HECK???" raised shoulders and glare. Did she think that her parking permit gave her permission to park in a fire lane? I'm reasonably certain that the only vehicles allowed to park in a fire lane are the big red ones with the flashy lights.

Now I must digress a bit, this didn't happen last night, but it happens quite often and it always makes me cranky. This is where my road-rage kicks in, and it all goes back to 4-Way stop signs. Honestly? How hard are they to use? I don't understand why people have such a hard time with them? It makes me really cranky when I'm waiting my turn, and when I'm about to go, someone pulls up to the intersection, and then wave to me like, "Oh, why don't you go ahead?" Really? You're letting me have MY right of way? REALLY? Why, thank you!!! That's SO nice of you.

Ok, back on track... I got my pizzas and made my way home, making a couple of stops along the way. Each time I got back into the car I thought about how wonderful it would be if someone made a car freshener that smelled like Papa Murphy's pizza. I got home, baked and ate some pizza, and played some Nancy Drew. I was much calmer and thought that perhaps my rant about things that make me cranky could wait until another time.

I got up this morning and headed for work. I made a stop at my new favorite coffee place (Coffee Girls in Nooksack - awesome!!) and pulled up to the window and told the girl, "I'd like a 16 oz non-fat coconut latte please." Then I handed her my punchcard and said, "I'd like to use my free one today please." She takes my card and says, "Oh, you have a free one." (Let's review the transcript. Didn't I just say that?) Then she says, "What kind of milk did you want?" I repeated, "Non-fat." She says, "Ok." Then she says, "What flavor did you want, again?" Seriously??? If you have a job that requires making custom orders for someone, perhaps you should listen when they give you their order? Just a thought... I got my coffee and headed for work and decided not to let Slow Witted Coffee Girl bother me.

At this point I need to interject that I had REALLY weird dreams last night messed with my mind. Ok, back to the story...

I walk into work and put my keys and purse away, and head to my dad's desk to drop some stuff off, and Ted greets me with, "Why are you here today?" At this point I'm truly puzzled. I asked him, "Isn't it Wednesday?" We both pondered for a second and determined that it was in fact Wednesday, and I was supposed to be there. I headed back to my desk where I encountered a guy we're going to simply refer to as Numbnuts. I know his name, but I think that Numbnuts suits him better. This guy comes into my store from time to time to rent stuff, usually carpet cleaners. He's always complaining about my equipment, and acts like he's doing me some huge favor by renting from me.

This is the conversation that we had this morning:

Numbnuts: Have either of these machines (gesturing to my carpet shampooers) been refurbished, or cleaned, lately?

Me: (Frostily) They get cleaned every time they are returned

Numbnuts: Oh, really? The filters too?

Me: (Not thawing at all) Yes

Numbnuts: Oh, this one actually looks pretty good. Sometimes they just don't seem to clean as well as other times. But I know that they are older machines. Which one is better?

Me: They are exactly the same (Now mentally envisioning strangling him with his long scraggly hair.)

Numbnuts: Ok, well I'll take this one.

Me: (Silently) Well, Bully for you Jackass. (And then aloud) Ok, sounds good.

Really, why is it necessary for him to criticize my equipment? If he really thinks that it's that terrible, then why doesn't he take his nappy hair and drive himself to another rental place and criticize their stuff?

I really really want to smack that guy.

I think that's all that was really bugging me for the time being.

Counting to 10(thousand...)

Working in retail is always an adventure. And Saturdays can be the Indiana Jones style adventures around here. My father described it as "They come over the walls on Saturdays" and he was right. There is a HUGE difference between Saturdays and Sundays in our store. On Sundays everyone is pleasant, they are happy we're here, and Sundays are actually an enjoyable day to work.

Saturdays are a horse of a different color...

My sister and I have a notebook (inspired by the "Festivus" episode of Seinfeld) called "The Big Book of Grievances." Several of my entries in that book are written about Saturdays. I actually took a little break to go disappoint another cranky customer while I was trying to type that last sentence.

So I thought that while I'm trying to keep my blood pressure low, I would jot down a few thoughts that have occurred to me today.

For starters, why am I to blame for something that the customer did? I had a woman come in, of course in a hurry because she left something to the last minute. She says to me, "Where is your camping stuff?" I asked what she was looking for, since we don't have a camping stuff department and have only a few things that would qualify for that category. She replies, "Binoculars. I just called and was told that you have them." At this point I'm truly stumped because I don't carry binoculars in the store. So I radio to everyone else and ask, "Did anyone just take a phone call about binoculars?" Because I'm hoping that maybe someone else knows something that I don't and that maybe we have a pair of binoculars somewhere. No one answers my call. The woman starts to get aggravated and says, "I don't understand, I just phoned here and spoke to a girl, she went and checked and came back and said you have them!" She pulls out her phone and says, "What's your phone number?" Yeah, she called the Lynden True Value. She then proceeds to get angry with me because she called one store and went to another one. I'm still trying to figure out how that one's my fault.

Why do people think that if they keep repeating their request that the results will change? "I'm sorry ma'am, we don't sell binoculars." I thought that was a clear statement. She repeated no less than 15 times, and I wish I was exaggerating, but I'm not, "I wish you had binoculars," or "I can't believe you don't have binoculars" as though hoping that I would finally tire of this cat and mouse game we were apparently playing, and say "Oh, you wanted binoculars?? I'm sorry, I thought you meant something else. Of course, right this way, I keep the binoculars in the back." Then, as I was bending over backwards to help her find something else that she could give an 8 year old boy for his birthday, she tells me (rather snappishly) "You need to bring in binoculars." At this point I was taking steady breaths and mentally replaying the Samuel L Jackson scene from Pulp Fiction, rewritten for my own purposes "Say binoculars one more time!!" bang bang bang.... but I digress. I calmly agreed that I should look into that (no pun intended.)

I also love it when customers insist they bought something here that they didn't. They get angry with me for saying that perhaps it was bought somewhere else. I realize that it's quite nervy of me to even suggest that the plumbing fitting that is made by a different manufacturer than the one we carry, with a barcode that doesn't scan, that they brought in in a Home Depot bag, or that has a Hardware Sales sticker on it might not have been purchased here. I've had people get so mad at me for not wanting to purchase something from them at full retail that I never sold to them. I had one man angrily insist that he would never return to our store because I wouldn't take back a can of bug spray that he didn't buy from us. How do I know that he didn't buy it from us? The can said "CHEVRON" on it. I pointed that out to him, he didn't see the problem. We're a True Value hardware store, Chevron is a gas station. Apparently that was not an important distinction for him.

For the most part, I go out of my way to help people. I even rented a helium tank fill valve from another company today because my helium tank got double booked and I found myself short a valve. I had no problem doing that because I wanted to make sure that both customers were taken care of. Last summer I sprayed Off mosquito repellant on my white tank top to make sure that it wouldn't stain the customers' white table cloths at the wedding they were setting up. I have literally taken the shirt off my back (after changing into a spare of course) to color match it for a customer who decided that my t-shirt was the precise shade they wanted for their room. I do these things and think nothing of them because I want to take care of my customers.

But then I get someone like Binocular Lady, or Bug Spray Man that I want to "take care of" in an entirely different manner.

Garden Wars, Episode II… The Couch Potato Strikes Back

So yesterday was a gloriously lazy day off for me. I stayed in my jammies until almost 3:00, and spent all morning and afternoon parked on the couch playing a Nancy Drew game. I had finally decided that it was time to do something productive around the house when Matt woke up. He got up, had his coffee, played on his computer a little bit, and then went out to mow the lawn. After he mowed the lawn he went to the shed and got out the weedeater. I decided to “contribute” to the yard work by throwing Lucie’s Flying Squirrel for her a couple of times. I was going to head back in to my piles of laundry and Nancy Drew when he made the comment, “I sure wish you’d do something about the garden.”

My first thought was, well, it was unprintable is what it was; but then I decided to go inside and find my gloves and go back out and work on that horribly overgrown jungle of weeds that I once called a garden. I gathered up my tools and my wheelbarrow and headed out to my poor garden. I started yanking out handfuls of weeds and chucking them into the wheelbarrow. Before long, I was on my knees reaching into clumps of strawberry plants and somewhat carefully removing the weeds that were wrapped around them.

As I did this, my mind began to wander. My thoughts ranged from one end of the scale to the other, and it amazed even me how fast my train of thought could move. I started out thinking, “Why didn’t I do something with my garden at the end of the growing season so that I could have prevented this?” Then I thought, “You know, God made weeds too, and if God doesn’t make mistakes, then really, should I be pulling these? What if this is where God wanted them and that’s why they are so tough to pull out.”

I was fairly amused by this thought, and that somehow brought to mind the AWANA musical I was in when I was 7 years old. It was called, “God’s Project.” Next thing I know, I’m singing songs from a musical I was in 26 years ago, and amazingly enough, I was remembering a lot of the words.

Next my thoughts took a darker turn as the weeds proved more and more resistant to my removal efforts. I started thinking, “These had better be the best ******* strawberries I’ve EVER had for all this effort!!!” And I felt an occasional pang of regret when I’d inadvertently yank out a plant with the beginnings of little berries on it.

As I continued on, my anger at my own laziness last fall and at these intrusive weeds kept me going. Even then as I was wondering once again if these stupid plants were worth it, I came across a whole berry, almost ripe, and a very decent size. Then I was grudgingly inspired to keep going and reclaim my garden.

My thoughts ranged wildly once more from a rather uncharitable notion that I had planted these darned berries for my husband in the first place, so really HE should be the one out there working to reclaim them instead of me. Then I felt bad for thinking that since he had put quite a bit of work into the garden with me. Then I started to wonder about people who say they actually enjoy weeding and I came to the conclusion that they are either masochists, or liars. I’m leaning towards liars.

Finally I was running out of steam and knew I’d have to give up for the night, so I stood up, and about cried because I’d been sitting on my knees pulling weeds for over an hour, and as you’ll recall from my very first blog post, my legs don’t like me very much when I get up from the ground. I decided that I was going to invest in a couple of handheld weeding tools to help me in my battle against these insidious invaders of my garden.

So this morning, I dragged my weary body out of bed, and felt rather like I’d been dragged behind a truck down a bumpy road. When I walked into work this morning, a little slower, and definitely a little stiffer than usual, I went over to the garden tools department and picked out a couple of useful little weapons, er tools to help me tonight. I got what is technically called a “Dandelion Weeder” but in reality should be named after what it’s really good for, a “Slug Killer.” My mother used to get so angry with Kimberly and me because her so-called dandelion weeders were always covered with slug slime and pieces of the slugs that my sister and I had chopped in half with it.

I haven’t ruled out using it as a slug-killer yet, but for now I have decided to use it for its intended purpose of getting rid of weeds. I also decided that I’m going to borrow my mom’s Garden Weasel, and with the help of all my new tools, I’m going to get that garden reclaimed so that I can plant stuff next week.

We’ll see if my resolve to have a garden is stronger than my desire to sit on my butt… Stay tuned.