Catch-up: Can you do nine months of yardwork in one afternoon?

Well. No.

No, you can’t. But you can kind of beat back ferality.

Since the current adventures in medical science started last June, I’ve pretty much let the yard go to pot. Fall is Arizona’s answer to springtime. Normally the Happy Homeowner would sprinkle some vegetable seeds into the dirt and set out some flowers and pour a bunch of sugar water into the hummingbird feeders and stock the finch feeders with “wild bird seed” straight from Home Depot.

I haven’t even been able to look at my gardens for lo! all these seven months. The result is the place as pretty much gone to pot. And not the smokeable kind.

The poolside rose has stretched out its crooked, clawed limbs to toss passers-by into the drink. The blue plumbago has turned into the Plant That Ate Philadelphia. The  Meyer lemon has invaded 360 degrees of space.

Normally in Arizona one would prune the roses along about the end of December. I did manage to hack back the climbing rose on the west side, so as one could walk through the side yard without being thrown to the ground. But that was about it.

With another Surgical Experience scheduled for Tuesday and yet more groceries to be bought and plans to be laid and tons of paid work still undone, today looked like the last window in which to shovel back the jungle between now and about the end of March. So it was out to the backyard with clippers and nippers in hand.

Four hours later… The place doesn’t look a lot less feral.

Yet:

New, less obtrusive cheapo doggy barriers replace the white wooden and green wire things that have kept Ruby from throwing  herself in the drink.

The rose bush is pruned back from the walkway.

The orange flowering thing has been trimmed to a reasonable size.

The blue plumbago has been disentangled from the Lady Banks rose and sort of trimmed. But it remains its jungley self, because in jungle format it helps to block Ruby from slipping into the pool area and plunging into the drink.

The Mexican primrose that has taken over the flowerbed remains in place, because it’s frost-hardy, because come spring it will burst out in a blanket of beautiful pink blossoms, and because it creates a thick mat of ground cover that crowds out most weeds except for the hated pepper tree offspring and the hated bermudagrass…although it must be said the latter has a hard time holding its own against the stuff.

Since the ongoing horror show began, I just haven’t had the energy or the heart to work on my yard. So it’s a mess. Filled a large black yard bag with clippings, hauled a great deal of debris out the back gate, but made little visible impression on the mess.

Still. It’s a start.

Presumably if no new horrors arise (and arise they certainly may…), in six or eight weeks I’ll feel like returning to this chore. That would be around the end of March, eh? It should stay cold enough for another three or four weeks after that to inhibit new growth. With any luck, all of February will be growth-averse. The end of March will still be cool enough, most of the time, to throw oneself around  out in the yard.

If the worst happens — other than croaking over under the anaesthetic (hardly the worst possibility) — I’ll have to sell the house and move, because if the current horror show continues any longer, I won’t be able to care for the property any longer. But if the docs find no invasive cancer in the stuff they lob off and so leave me fukkin’ alone after this, maybe I’ll get back into synch with the seasons and the work. One hopes so.

But one doesn’t hold out excessive hope.

I’m thinking about what I’ll do if they come back to me after this surgery with yet another depressing path report. The only depressing possibility that remains is that they’ll find some invasive cancer cells in the remains of the Guilty Boob they lob off on Tuesday and will propose to subject me to full-blown cancer therapy: radiation, chemotherapy, hormone therapy. What, really, am I going to do then?

Am I really going to subject myself to radiation and various bizarre chemicals?

I think not.

I think the response to a report like that will be “Thank you very much…don’t call me, I’ll call you.”

I think I’d rather die in another five or ten years, half or three-quarters of which would be spent feeling pretty good, than live another twenty years with my health wrecked. And that is exactly what the proposed cancer treatments will do: wreck my health permanently. I don’t think I want to live sick from now into perpetuity.

In fact, I know that’s not what I’m going to do.

Pray for the best, whatever that is.

😉