Exhausted

I spent the morning with my Sweetie and my Niece-in-law, feeding ducks and saving tent caterpillars from the sidewalk at a leafy local university. How do you tell an earnest six year old that tent caterpillars don't grow up to be lovely butterflies -- that they are ravenous pests which can strip an entire tree bare?

Then finally, we dropped Her off at home and it was my time! Time, after a week of no time, to tackle some outdoor projects.

First order of business: attempt to tame the damnable honeysuckle that is blanketing the woods behind my back yard and extending its tendrils even into the lawn. The problem is that the honeysuckle has formed an alliance with thorny bramble vines, weedy mulberry saplings and with the rusty ruins of the fence that the hurricane destroyed a few years ago.

So it was slow going -- you couldn't yank the honeysuckle barehanded or you'd get a palmful of thorns. You couldn't yank at all where the mulberry was anchored -- that had to be dug out. And that stupid fence, over and in which the whole mess was tangled, has already slashed a gash in my jeans, not to mention my hands.

But with a saw, a pair of clippers and a shovel, I beat back the horde.

With what remained of my energy, I dug a hole near the house and finally, finally, finally planted the peach tree.

Then I sat there on the grass, covered in filth, completely, totally, blissfully exhausted.