$#*@& Yardwork
 

I'm getting DirecTV installed today. I am going to mount the dish on top of my storage shed (approved by my HOA), but I have a bouganvila that was partially in the way. It extends into my neighbor's porch, and she likes the shade, so I don't want to do too much to it. So, I get out the pruner-on-a-pole and try to trim it. The pole-pruner sucks donkey dick. I can't get it around a branch, the string trigger sags, etc. So, I get my ladder and smaller pruner. I start snipping away, and with each cut, I find something else that needs pruning. I'm trimming, I'm chopping, I'm making some good progress. My wife failed to tell me that bouganvila shrubs have larger thorns than roses. I'm scratched and torn all to hell.

Then I decide that the cat's paw ivy that is growing up the back of the house needs to be trimmed back before it takes over the whole place. I snip it, and try to pull it off the wall. I wind up pulling the screen off of my guest bedroom window when the ivy doesn't want to relinquish its hold. Back in the house, run upstairs, manually remove the ivy from the screen, pathetically try to replace the screen in the window, give up and duct tape the bastard in place.

After all this, I realize that I really need to clean up the porch, being covered with bouganvila petals and ivy bits. Now, this is the first yardwork that this place has seen in a month, and the beautiful pink petals are ankle deep in some places. I try the broom and dustpan thing, but I eventually get a shovel and just start shoveling that shit into the trash bag. After a hosedown of the whole porch and plants, I'm finally done, two hours later. I'm so glad I have no lawn.

Now I'm too tired to appreciate the DirecTV. How fair is that?

Dude, you live in Arizona. You can hire some illegal mexican guy to do that shit for you for like 3 bucks an hour.

porch, trimming, screen window...you are a lightweight.

dig some fence post holes with an old, broken down post digger and get back to me.

I've done that. And the ground around my place is like concrete in the summertime. I have to chisel a hole in the ground with a pick about four inches deep, fill it with water, let it sit a few hours, and then I can start digging. I have to repeat the water treatment every 6-8 inches. I've tried using motorized augers, and actually broken them.

I thought it was all over after doing it in 90 degree heat. Considered just lying in the road. The yard is full of rocks, strategically placed about a foot below the surface.

Damn, my head's still spinning...

That's why I bought this damn place! :) It has no lawn and only about 200 sq. feet of back porch/yard.

Dola

I wouldn't know, or want to know, where to find some illegal guy.

Here in Dallas they're easy as hell to find. Groups of them stand on streetcorners waiting for people to pick them up and hire them for day labor...

What Jeebs says.

Head to Guadalupe in the morning and take your pick.