The Big Hurt and being a complete mule.

Ok - so Dave was going to France and there was this big project I wanted to complete as sort of a surprise to him.  Even tho' he knew I was going to do it. 

We are on 5 acres and it is hot and dry where we are... often with lots of wind... very hard, red clay soils... plants just don't really flourish.  Especially with MY watering habits.  I try to remember but we don't have a sprinkler system and it usually involves me running around with a bunch of hoses and it's a huge pain in 'da butt.

I got a bid this spring from a sprinkler guy.

*cough*  $8K *cough* to make it so I could lord over my yard and water it ALLLLLL with a simple wave of my hand...

Yeah.  Well.  I don't gots 8K to spend on watering. 

While the guy was at our place, he said, "Why don't you put in a raised border here, put a drip hose and cover it with mulch?  That is simple, you could do that"

And after getting his quote I was like F* it.  MULCH EVERYTHING!  MULCH IS THE ANSWER!

I showed Dave the area I wanted to mulch... he looked at me dubiously.  "Are you sure you want to do that much?  Why don't you start small and go from there?  You can make it bigger in increments."

I thought about that for all of .00001 seconds. 

I am so much more of a whole hog kinda gal.  I jump both feet in.  I fling myself into things without looking back.

And so I called Hagemann's Landscape to have a hydraulic lift truck deliver a load of mulch the first Thursday Dave was gone. They delivered it... the area I had them dump it was really really dumb in hind sight (that hindsight...always 20/20!).  It was right in the middle of the open gate from the yard, out to the front pasture. 

I thought it wasn't that big of a deal at the time because I'd have it all moved and spread into the area I wanted in no time.  And then the wind came..... 60mph winds....  sustained.... Saturday late afternoon and it continues for 5 or 6 days straight.  I tried scooping it and putting it in our Rubbermaid cart for about 2 hours when it began... and then it became comical... like completely insane that I was out there moving or trying to move mulch in the high winds.

It was like Caddyshack with the Bishop in the thunderstorm playing golf....

When I finally gave up and moved inside... my face was black with mulch.  I had effectively mulched my face.  I wouldn't recommend it as an exfoliating treatment. No.  No.  Not at all.  Of course no one was home to tell me my face was black with mulch.  Dogs and cats don't tell or care.  I cleaned house, did laundry, changed sheets on the bed and then when it was time to get ready for bed a couple hours later, I saw my face in the bathroom.... Mulchface.

And thus the gate to the front pasture remained open.  And the dogs ran amok in the front pasture.  Which I thought was ok, until Toe chased a rabbit and squeaked out the fence... into the driveway and down the dirt road.  The dirt road people drive 55mph on... and he's small....easy to miss....easy to squish with a car....

I didn't know he'd gone until all of a sudden...he was just.... gone.  My heart sank and I began looking all over for him on our place... nowhere.  I started thinking horrific thoughts.  My heart was in my knees and they were quaking....  I was so scared he was gone.

And then I heard barking.  And I think it was his bark... I went running down the road and 3 houses down was Toe... head in a rabbit hole furiously digging and imperiously barking at the bunny in the hole. 

Oh I about sat in the middle of the road in relief... I called him over and he came.  I was so happy to see the little fella.

We went home.  And the stress hit about the gate.  That he could get out into the front pasture any time I let the dogs out to pee... stress.  Stress upon stress.  And then something happened to my ribs on the left side...they totally spasmed up so much I could barely breathe much less move very fast... I think it was from my mulch shovelling a few days prior along with other things I did that day and in following days.  I was trying to do it all.  And I paid.

I told Dave about it when he called me from France one afternoon. 

I got home that night and began chores.  Carefully due to the pain in my ribs.   I made my way back to the hay shed. 

The mulch.

It was all inside the gate. 

The gate was closed.

No more dogs running amok in the front pasture! 

I looked up and thought..."Angels."  I immediately felt 300% better.  Stress melted away..

Dave had called a neighbor with a tractor after talking to me and asked them to move the mulch pile.  Such a simple thing and it meant the WORLD to me.

And yes.  I am one stubborn freakin' mule. 

And I'm glad my husband know this and can still take care of me even when he is half-way around the world......