Even though I think I try really hard to keep my obsessions from impacting my marriage, sometimes my “enthusiasm” causes me to send Bill right over the edge.
I think this time it all started with the fact that I always pick the absolute hottest part of the summer to undertake huge garden renovations for which I sometimes require additional manual labor , namely Bill. He does not want to be my garden chore boy anymore but since we can’t afford staff, and the boys are gone, he is all I have.
The garden projects this time were
a. Some very large willow bushes I had planted for privacy years ago have to be taken out. The willows are the very definition labor intensive. They drop their leaves in drought , then grow new ones, so during the course of a year I could rake over there 3 or more times. Their branches are also the first to go in wind, snow, ice, or even if you just look at them wrong. Grrrr….then I have to prune and clean up the garden they shed all over. Near the back of our property the white pines and maples have finally filled in enough that the willows there can go. The other trees will certainly benefit from the extra water they will have with the willow gone, and should fill in quite nicely. So Bill got the chainsaw, and in a scene I will not even describe we cut down 10 towering willows. ( Death only brushed against Bill by way of crushing once and threat to chainsawing off leg twice, not bad. We didn’t even manage to take out the street light or the neighbors children who came to watch the destruction)
Now there is a HUGE hole leading right to the street and any one who drives or walks by can see the whole back yard and we can see the road again. Patience is the key here and Bill has none.It will be a while before it fills in and he does not want the neighbors watching him bunny hunt in his PJ’s.
b. the second project was taking out a (again) very large red osier dogwood that has a “thing” ( I will insist to my grave that it caught black spot from the climbing rose that grew through it, but black spot is rose specific so that is not supposed to be true. If it is not black spot then it is just a “thing” because it fits no other disease description I can find). I cut it all down and Bill helped chain saw out the stump , but it left such a depressing gap in my garden. You can see before and after pics below. Bill said it robbed the garden of a great deal of it’s ambiance, and for once I agree with him. I planted a weeping alaskan cedar in it’s place, and Bill commanded it to get growing last night .
before (in fall)
after
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We started to cut up the debris piles for burning and chipping, then decided wouldn’t it be better to just call someone? In some sort of karmic twist, the arborist I hired 3 months ago to cable a birch and prune a pine tree showed up yesterday to actually prune the pines that belong to our neighbor right on the property line. I asked if we could add “remove debris” to our list and he will also trim some of the willow stumps lower for us too. Hurray.
Then the arborist went off to tackle the neighbor’s pines, and lo and behold, he cut them down sooo much that we can now see THAT neighbor’s yard and lost some shade.
When he comes today I am to direct him NOT to touch the pine on our property, Bill would rather have it take over the garden than loose any more privacy.
Last night after all this trauma, when Bill came to bed, in my twisted form of pillow talk I said, “Hey I was thinking of moving the whole rock wall in the front of the house out about 3-4 feet to accomadate another cedar I bought that will shade the front of the house, what do you think?”
Did you hear him from your house? I’ll bet you did!!! I had to listen to an angry and extremely loud (especially for pillow talk) tirade full of all sorts of bad language and admonishments NOT TO TAKE ON ANY MORE GARDEN PROJECTS! etc etc.
I humbly took my pillow and went to sleep in David’s room. He is right and I hate to admit when I am wrong so fleeing seemed like the best option.
All is right in the world this morning, so while he is gone to work I will be pulling out the rock wall 🙂