'Ya Gotta' Love the Hammock

As promised, Barb and I jumped into the backyard yesterday and cleaned out the rest of the yard waste, finishing our final yard preparations for Spring.

Living in town, with a yard full of mature trees, creates a complex problem. There are branches and leaves and assorted debris. But where do you go with it all?

I have seen neighbors fill up a wheel barrel full of debris and run it across Front Street and the railroad tracks and dump the debris into the thin stretch of woods along the river. But that's not my style. I'm a straight shooter. The moment I would try something like that I would get caught.

So we use the huge biodegradeable paper bags that the borough distributes. We have around 15 bags full out back right now. The borough picks the yard waste up every other week throughout the summer.

When we first moved to Marietta this service was free. But this summer we have to buy stickers for $1.50 each, for every bag. I'm not too fond of this gameplan. I'll pay for my stickers. But you know lots of people will decide not to buy stickers. That will only lead to more illegal dumping or people just not cleaning up their properties.

When it comes to trash, recycling, yard waste, and all of that, I firmly believe that local governments should make it as easy and affordable for people in the interest of achieving a squeaky clean, neat town.

This past Fall I tired of bagging a couple dozen bags of leaves, carrying them up to the house to store until pick-up day, and then having to drag them all back out through the yard to the alley for collection.

I decided that I wasn't going to pick-up yard waste until the day before pick-up, and everything was going straight to the curb.

But then it rained, and rained and rained. We got stuck with all kinds of waste left in our yard over this past Winter.

It felt good yesterday to finally clear it all out. At times I was down on my hands and knees crawling through the planting beds, carefully pulling debris away from the hostas, the ferns, Barb's beloved bleeding heart bush.

It used to take me one afternoon to clean up the yard. Now it takes me three days.

Barb and I knocked it all out yesterday. Now we can focus on planting and nurturing rather than ripping and tossing.

I don't understand what it is about cancer and chemotherapy that wears a person out so drastically. I guess when you're fighting such a serious disease, your body laced with serious medicines, it just wears a body out.

By the time we were done in the yard yesterday I was exhausted, a good exhausted.

I plopped down in the hammock. It felt so good.

When you work really hard everything is better. Have you ever come in from a really hard, dirty, sweaty day of work and noticed how the shower felt better than ever before? How about a meal? How about a hammock?

A chair is just a chair, except to someone who has been on their feet all day.