Sunday evening when the sun finally went down and the outdoor temperature dropped from the 100s (F) to something much more tolerable, I asked Andy if he would join me in the backyard to weed.  He politely declined and said he was “done for the day and ready to relax.”  Psht, I knew he would have an excuse.  I have fought this battle enough times to know I was not going to change his mind.

I put on my flip flops and scurried out to the backyard eager to check this item off of my ever present mental to-do list.  Sassy (the dog) met me at the back door and like normal, the minute I started weeding, she went over to our ornamental grass and started eating it.  What the hell dog?  Seriously, I don’t get it.  We now understand why the grass which is supposed to be like eight feet tall by now is only two feet tall.  Ruffage, I guess.

It had been weeks since I last weeded and the weeds were starting to take over.  The vines on the picket fence surrounding the garden were leeching on to plants I want to keep around and vegetables in the garden so I knew I needed to act soon.  About 75% of the yard now has the garden fabric which is then covered by dirt that supposedly keeps the weeds away.  While the weeds were not fully contained by the added fabric, I learned by comparing the 75% with fabric to the other 25% sans fabric that the fabric does a darn good job.  Even though weeds do start growing they are more sparse and their roots less shallow.  I made a mental note to call the woman who is doing our landscaping in the front yard and ask her to lay the fabric on the area that is missing it in the back.

Once I got through the flower beds, I started on the garden area.    As I was ripping and pulling and digging with my little trowel, I noticed a bunch of ants scurrying about…like not full on ant colony ants but more than your normal amount of ants, ants.  Then as I got into the button weed jungle on the far side of my garden (area sans fabric), I started seeing all sorts of daddy long legs, other spiders, rolly pollies, and other insects.  They were frantically running about and I sort of stopped for a minute and imagined the scene as a Disney movie.  (I did this sort of thing even before I had a child.)

I wondered if the bugs were on red alert and there was some sort of alarm going off at a decibel only they can hear warning one another to evacuate.  I was taking their weed habitat like the miners tried to take Hometree in the movie Avatar.  What an awful person I was to weed my garden!

I continued to play the plot out in my head for a little longer…

Then I got over it.

And less than an hour after I had  started…look how nice my garden looks.

Oh and if in about three weeks you need any roma tomatoes, I am going to have buckets of them and would happily share.

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