Weeds, weeds, more weeds

7/2/09 Thursday
I called Cherie and had her get the tick shampoo and spray. Worked last night till 9:30, when it was too dark to see. I usually work this late anymore and am always wishing there were more hours of daylight. I work as hard as I can when I can but can’t keep up. This is probably the source of depression. I was out at 7:30 this morning pulling weeds and cutting them down with the hoe. With the recent rain it’s overwhelming and fills me with a sense of futility.












Areas I had cleared with the front end loader are now seas of two inch high weeds. This goes for where I tilled garden plots, plots I have yet to plant, and the rest of the five acres I disced under with the disc I borrowed from the old man. That part I can disc under again if I can borrow the disc again. Hate borrowing stuff. Makes me feel like a bum.








The rest has to be done by hand. I used the hoe till it was hard to hold last night. Sure felt it in my muscles this morning but will do it again. As much as I hate to I will have to use Roundup to spray weeds around the house. They are in every hard to reach nook and cranny so doing it by hand isn’t feasible. The sticker grass is making stickers/seeds all over the place. That means every plant will produce a hundred more, which will produce a hundred thousand more. It’s hard. If I can ever get a handle on it I can keep up, but that’s probably a pipe dream.








I read the ticket and it looks like it will cost us $288.00. Wrote a letter to the judge but don’t have a lot of hope or faith in the justice system. Mercy and compassion are not something I’ve seen in the courts, just the letter of the law and “pay up”. If I’d been speeding that’s one thing, I’d take responsibility. But to pay that much when I wasn’t is another thing. Seems like we’re being hit left and right with expenses we couldn’t plan for.





These last two pictures show where I'm trying to "solarize" the soil where we hope to grow a lawn. I've scrounged up bits of plastic and old carpet to do so. Plus this is an old pool cover we got from Wally when I saw he was throwing it away. There's just too much weed seed in the soil so any grass that starts can't compete. My hope is that I can kill/sterilize the soil so grass has a chance. Unfortunately I don't have enough to cover everything. As always, I do the best I can with what I've got.

So it’s hard to “Keep my chin up” and not get depressed. It isn’t any easier for Cherie either. Then there is the anger. What someone said to me a couple of weeks ago still grinds. If anyone thinks I write this stuff to make someone feel sorry for me you can… Nuff said.

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Here’s another reason to keep the weeds down. I was using the hoe around the corn when I heard the tell tell sound of a rattlesnake. He was hard to see in the weeds and corn and it took a lot for me to get the critter out where I could kill it. Chopped down a few corn plants in the process. I really hate to kill them. Rattlesnakes are good because they feed on the gophers that do so much damage around here. But I have my dogs and wife to think about. Contrary to popular belief Rattlesnake bites seldom kill. If one happened to inject it’s venom directly into a vein you would have a problem. Otherwise you get pretty sick. They can kill dogs but not all the time. No matter what they aren’t good to have around the house so he’s dead. In this picture his head is almost chopped all the way off but he’s still moving and shaking his rattle.