The scale this morning, miraculously was lower again this morning. I guess it's not miraculous as this is the time of the month that I see losses, but I'm seeing more of a loss than I expected. I said to myself and a few other places that I would be so happy if I got to 165 (point zero) this month. No, not happy, ecstatic, and this morning got terribly close. As my husband has said before, "if you just spit enough, you can lose .2 pounds". Joking of course but have you ever measured/weighed a bit under 3 ounces? It isn't much!
This morning and early afternoon I had orientation for my new job. When I was done with that I went to the grocery store to get stuff for Mother's day for my other job and then got to work in the garden - finally. I dug and pulled for 2 hours straight.
The previous owner had created quite a nightmare situation with the side yard. She had put down a weed barrier over the clay and put up timbers as a border. Then, probably when the weeds weren't staying away, she put down another layer of weed barrier over the first, and over many layers of amended soil and mulch. Then, again, another layer. Three layers of weed barrier and in between, layers of heavy dirt.
In between the bottom layer and the middle layer, roots had started to grow through and between, making it that much harder to pull up and of course, it's heavy with all that dirt and I have to keep shoveling and pushing it aside to expose the fabric.
The whole situation was ludicrous really. It's like putting three patches on a leak on a tire - you aren't solving the problem and eventually, you'll need to just fix the tire, or in this case, clear the flower bed and start fresh.
So, I discovered this disaster with the flower bed last summer when I tried to plant a few perennials. I had weeded it and started to dig. I had no idea of the weed barrier as all the weeds on top were just little things. But, when I tried to dig a hole, I got one, then two, then three layers to cut through. What??? And of course, I had gotten perennials so that I could get the area to eventually fill in. How could it fill in with even a single layer of weed barrier? I was too tired last year from already doing a ton of work in the yard, so I said, "next year." Guess what? It's next year! And that's where I'm starting even though it's where I don't even want to be.
When we moved in, this flower bed was naked - huge and naked with a few humongous plants in the back - a very old rhododendron and some evergreen bush and on the fence, a very old vining rose. The shape of the flower bed is kind of like the shape of a trapezoid. It's roughly 40 feet long at the longest and 30 feet long at the shortest and then about 15 feet deep. It's BIG. Now, imagine 3 layers of weed barrier to be lifted out of there with probably a total of 5 inches of soil to be removed to get to all of it. It's not fun.
That 'hill' of a flower bed has too much dirt with all these ridiculous layers and last year in a torrential rain, the timbers tipped over on it's side and now even more of it is eroding away and exposing the layers of fabric. Ugh. I've decided that once I remove all this darn fabric, I will transfer some of this soil to the area just near it where the roots of the old, dead pine tree (already cut down) are all exposed in the yard. You can't mow there. Nothing grows there and it's lower than the rest of the yard. So, I'll start to fill it in.
Sound like a lot of work?? Sure is, but it will be worth it.
Today I removed about 2/3s of the fabric (I think). I so wanted to get it all done, but my husband made me come in and eat - meanie!
Wonder how much 2 hours of that burned for calories? I hope a lot - because I'm tired. However, I still had to make dinner, do dishes and now make cookies for tomorrow... I'll try to stay out of the batter. I would love to see165.0 on the scale tomorrow and I can't see that if I eat cookie dough! That SHOULD be enough to keep me out of the batter. We'll see!
Stats for 5/12/12:
Highest weight: 275 Now: 165.2
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