Taming The Wilderness
The project I've undertaken at my sister's house has not gone as quickly as I imagined it would as I was drawing up plans and brainstorming ideas. But, I suppose it is moving as quickly as it possibly can.
Two days were spent there on this enormous shrub that was to be taken out. It had crept in under the fence from the neighbors we assumed and there were little satellite sprouts of the thing coming up all over. In the end it may have been a better idea just to control the offshoots and leave the beast but I didn't know in the beginning it would take so long and so much energy to deal with.
Digging it out became impossibly endless. We eventually hooked a chain around it and attempted to pull it out of the ground with my truck with no success. So we sawed it down as low as possible into the woody, rooted stump, hammered some pennies in with the hope the copper would eventually kill it and then covered it with a black garbage bag and buried it. Luckily, there was enough space in front of it to transplant a sad little lilac bush that was struggling to live in a shady spot behind the garage.
There was more to do for sure but I am continually thwarted by her unruly dogs and the lack of ability to fence them out of areas I've worked on. And my sister with her shit attitude does nothing to prevent them from trampling all over things. Her indolent attitude is that she "can't watch the dogs all the time".
I really see some negative potential for all this. She is so rooted in being the victim of her own life she even puts me to shame. She refuses to even do the simplest things like put garbage in a garbage can or pick up after her animals. I've railed about this in the past already. She spends endless hours every week volunteering at an animal shelter, yet her own animals languish alone due to this for hours. And they have to walk around in a backyard all over their old feces from months and possibly years ago.
Even the neighbor commented to me once about picked up dog crap, which means they either can see or smell the disgusting state of her yard. I hate cleaning litter boxes but I still do it even on my worst days. Because I know I took on the responsibility of having these pets and my mental issues are not their fault to suffer for. If I think about it all too much it just infuriates me.
Comically, she has a degree in psychology. Which may make me reconsider ever trusting the opinion of a therapist again if they are all secretly fucked up human beings without the ability to manage their own lives.
Moving past the negativity, I have great hopes to get started this summer on the small prairie garden I want to put in the back of the yard. Where as I have been limited at my parents house with what I can do that my mother approves of, I intend to go all out for this small plot I have. Native grasses, a myriad of flowering plants. All the prairie staples that my mother often comments are "too weedy".
In fact, my sister has six or seven milkweed plants growing in various places right now. They all consider them "weeds" and my mom as itching to pull them but I think it is amazing, truly. I only wish I had the ability to transplant them now where they can grow free in the back plot.
It will be another week before I can even get back there. It seems like everything gets in the way of my ability to make progress. Work being the worst of it. Working at home continues to be a double-edged sword as I do less and less every day and then clamor to find stuff to bill on my time sheets. It is almost like I am tasting a level of freedom from the oppression of employment yet at the same time, every Monday I am pulled back into the pit.
I wonder if my coworkers are working as little as I am. Or perhaps, I am now at their level of production where as before I was just doing too much. For now the Boss seems to leave me to my own devices as I think I am still riding on the wave of guilt he felt over dumping Taco's client on me and fucking me over. That won't let forever though.
Besides this gardening work, I feel I have little time to focus on personal time for myself. Which seems silly because I spend all day, every day alone here. But, I had desires to go on some hiking excursions and biking extensively. Little of which I have done at all. This isn't all time management or laziness. The weather hasn't exactly been consistent enough either.
I continue to debate not participating in the pride parade this year. Wondering if maybe I should drive up to Devil's Lake that day and hike. Though, I'd wanted to repair the rusted out exhaust system on my truck before taking the long drive. So once again, time management gets in the way. When do I find time to fix the truck? There just isn't enough time for any of this. Which is why I could care less about participating in the drunken revelry of pride in a neighborhood I consider to be enemy territory now.
Let the straight people have it all. It holds no meaning to me now but a sense of angst. My heart and my life is urging me in a different direction.
Two days were spent there on this enormous shrub that was to be taken out. It had crept in under the fence from the neighbors we assumed and there were little satellite sprouts of the thing coming up all over. In the end it may have been a better idea just to control the offshoots and leave the beast but I didn't know in the beginning it would take so long and so much energy to deal with.
Digging it out became impossibly endless. We eventually hooked a chain around it and attempted to pull it out of the ground with my truck with no success. So we sawed it down as low as possible into the woody, rooted stump, hammered some pennies in with the hope the copper would eventually kill it and then covered it with a black garbage bag and buried it. Luckily, there was enough space in front of it to transplant a sad little lilac bush that was struggling to live in a shady spot behind the garage.
There was more to do for sure but I am continually thwarted by her unruly dogs and the lack of ability to fence them out of areas I've worked on. And my sister with her shit attitude does nothing to prevent them from trampling all over things. Her indolent attitude is that she "can't watch the dogs all the time".
I really see some negative potential for all this. She is so rooted in being the victim of her own life she even puts me to shame. She refuses to even do the simplest things like put garbage in a garbage can or pick up after her animals. I've railed about this in the past already. She spends endless hours every week volunteering at an animal shelter, yet her own animals languish alone due to this for hours. And they have to walk around in a backyard all over their old feces from months and possibly years ago.
Even the neighbor commented to me once about picked up dog crap, which means they either can see or smell the disgusting state of her yard. I hate cleaning litter boxes but I still do it even on my worst days. Because I know I took on the responsibility of having these pets and my mental issues are not their fault to suffer for. If I think about it all too much it just infuriates me.
Comically, she has a degree in psychology. Which may make me reconsider ever trusting the opinion of a therapist again if they are all secretly fucked up human beings without the ability to manage their own lives.
Moving past the negativity, I have great hopes to get started this summer on the small prairie garden I want to put in the back of the yard. Where as I have been limited at my parents house with what I can do that my mother approves of, I intend to go all out for this small plot I have. Native grasses, a myriad of flowering plants. All the prairie staples that my mother often comments are "too weedy".
In fact, my sister has six or seven milkweed plants growing in various places right now. They all consider them "weeds" and my mom as itching to pull them but I think it is amazing, truly. I only wish I had the ability to transplant them now where they can grow free in the back plot.
It will be another week before I can even get back there. It seems like everything gets in the way of my ability to make progress. Work being the worst of it. Working at home continues to be a double-edged sword as I do less and less every day and then clamor to find stuff to bill on my time sheets. It is almost like I am tasting a level of freedom from the oppression of employment yet at the same time, every Monday I am pulled back into the pit.
I wonder if my coworkers are working as little as I am. Or perhaps, I am now at their level of production where as before I was just doing too much. For now the Boss seems to leave me to my own devices as I think I am still riding on the wave of guilt he felt over dumping Taco's client on me and fucking me over. That won't let forever though.
Besides this gardening work, I feel I have little time to focus on personal time for myself. Which seems silly because I spend all day, every day alone here. But, I had desires to go on some hiking excursions and biking extensively. Little of which I have done at all. This isn't all time management or laziness. The weather hasn't exactly been consistent enough either.
I continue to debate not participating in the pride parade this year. Wondering if maybe I should drive up to Devil's Lake that day and hike. Though, I'd wanted to repair the rusted out exhaust system on my truck before taking the long drive. So once again, time management gets in the way. When do I find time to fix the truck? There just isn't enough time for any of this. Which is why I could care less about participating in the drunken revelry of pride in a neighborhood I consider to be enemy territory now.
Let the straight people have it all. It holds no meaning to me now but a sense of angst. My heart and my life is urging me in a different direction.