Yeah, that recitation of all the outdoor work I’ve been doing in the last post . . . and Rose’s comment about taking me to task for my pride? Well, Rose sent me up to Lagrange county to work in the yard there. It was in the 70’s and the humidity was 80%; we have had so much rain that the end effect has been tropical forest with big weird weeds. Rose had me mow all the grass, some places twice because it had grown sooo tall. She had me weedeat and wade into green growth that no doubt included poison ivy; she had me prune and snip branches and all she gave me was a can of bug spray and some bottles of water.  And the past two days have just been starters – she’s sending me back this week, with black mesh to cover some areas, weed killer for others, more spools of weedeater string, clippers, trimmers – you name it.

She’s a taskmaster, that Rose. I saw a least one snake, which may have been a baby which I may have stepped on. There was another possible snake sighting when a long thing fell out of some vines on a tree. Quentin suggested that these may have been babies with a big mother. Oh.

I used the Off Dry insect repellent and so far, I have not seen any bites, nor does any skin seem irritated by a poison, even thought the weedeater was whacking my legs pretty good with debris. We shall see. I will say it goes on dry and you don’t feel like a greased pig the way we did back when I was little and   6-12 was the goo they spread on me.

I did get a scare when I looked down and saw a part of a black tube in the overgrowth; fortunately I was almost done in that area and made myself man up and go back in for a couple of minutes. Then I thought, “Oh, that’s good enough.”  I don’t “man up” too well.