DRAGGING BUTT

Well, I missed posting Friday. About all I can do right now, is just hitting the keys. I spent the day Thursday helping my parents in Loveland. They had some things that needed to be done in their garden area.

It ended up being more than I thought it would be. At first, Mom asked me, if I could put down some ground cloth to keep weeds out. And she wanted me to put down some bark around where they used to have a garden. So, like a good son, I said sure, no problem. So away I went with Nugget to Loveland.

They had already been to Home Depot and bought like 40 bags of bark and ground cloth.

I thought that all I had to do was put down the cloth, pin it down, and spread the bark. Well, it turned out I first had to remove old bark that has been there since the dawn of time, and pull up the old ground cloth. With my dad's health not being the best in the world right now, it was Mom and I: me shoveling bark and she taking it to the back side of the shed.

I picked up all of the old bark, and I started to pull up the old ground cloth.

My dad came outside, set in a chair, and said for me to just leave the old stuff there, and " we" would put the new cloth over the old. And that was fine by me. But, putting down the new cloth was a little harder than I thought it would be, with me being such a "young" feller of 55. I do not know how many times I was standing, rolling out ground cloth, pinning it down, and making sure that there are no wrinkles in said ground cloth.

As I was doing all of this, Mom decided to start moving bags of bark to back where I am trying to lay the ground cloth. Now I have two projects going. Then I'm told that they also have a raised garden bed to put together. Third project.

Well, I had most of the ground cloth down when Dad decided that he was getting hungry. Mom had moved maybe four bags of bark to the ground cloth, as it's all she can do to move two bags at a time in the wheel barrow. And it is getting warmer out also.

After lunch, back to the yard. More up and down on my hands and knees. I got all the ground cloth down, over 150 feet long or more. Mom was trying to open bags of bark and spread it around. And we still needed to get the raised garden put together.

Well, to make a long story short, "we" managed to get all the ground cloth down and pinned got over half of the raised garden put together. And maybe dumped about six bags of bark. And then they both said that they had had enough and it was time to call it quits. So I quit.

I was stiff and a little sore and the drive back home went alright. But when I hit the driveway, I felt like I had been dragged through a knothole backwards. I suddenly hurt from head to toe. Plus, I had a bit of a sun burn, even after wearing all kinds of sun block. As soon as I sat down at home, I was done.

Friday morning it was about all I could do just to stand by the coffee pot. My butt hurts, my legs hurt, my arms hurt, my hands hurt, my feet hurt. In fact, about the only thing that does not hurt is the top of my head, and I attribute that to wearing a hat all day. I called my parents to talk to them.

Mom was already outside spreading bark, and my Dad was getting dressed so he could go out and help her. And here I am, I can hardly move, I have to drink my coffee with a straw and have no idea how I'm going to do breakfast. Nugget has already had his and is giving me that look, like, "I've had my breakfast. What are you going to eat?"

When it hurts to try to move your arms above your chest, I was amazed that I managed to get a box of cereal out, and managed to open it. I couldn't do more, so I just buried my face in the box, and pigged out. Nugget caught the overflow, what fell to the floor and even what was stuck to my face when I managed to set on the bed to try to get dressed. But I won't go there. That is a whole different story.