Sore Mulchin' Muscles

Up Sunday morning by 645am. For the first time this season, the dawning daylight playing a part in waking me from bed. Daylight hours are closing in on my sleeping hours from both ends. I like that. Downstairs I enjoyed coffee and internet for an hour or so before Mindy asked me to bring her coffee. We ended up snuggling for a while before we both headed downstairs, and me ultimately out the door for a run. It was pretty much a carbon copy of Saturday with partly cloudy skies and temps expected to warm into the mid 60s. Another good day for a run and mulching.

As it was, I was extremely sore from Saturday’s mulching. It was pushing 10am by the time my run was behind me, and thanks to Mindy, a belly full of scrambled eggs. I headed out to get started on the mulch before 1030am. I had to find a nut and washer for the Deere trailer. Te original apparently worked itself loose and off during Saturday's bulk mulch work. No problem. I had some hardware in the garage. I let Mindy dictate where we'd start mulching. Agreed to begin around front, doing the beds around the walk and steps to the front stoop.

Over the course of the afternoon we spread 74 of 76 bags of mulch (had one bag leftover from 2013). I did most of the place, rip and dump while Mindy did most of the actual spreading. Jacob helped a little with the place, rip and sump but begged off to play early on. Jimaken picked him up for an afternoon soccer game at 3pm.

I was incredibly sore and with each additional bag I moved, ripped and dumped it only got worse. Mindy was sore too, but we kept at it until the job was complete. That’s what successful people do. We cleaned up as we went along so once we were finished spreading the mulch, there wasn’t much clean-up to do. Mindy headed in for a shower while I moved on to mowing the lawn.

Ashley & Olivia stopped over midafternoon to pick-up a check for the DJ deposit as well as some electric yard tools I offered her and Steven: an edger, blower, and hedge trimmers. Steven doesn’t seem to have the “keep the yard nice” bug, but neither does Ashley for that matter. But hey, maybe he/she will get it with these tools in their arsenal. We’ll see. None of the tools would be of much use without a long extension cord. And since I have many, I threw in a 100’ outdoor cord on a reel as well.

Since Saturday afternoon, Bella had been asking, pleading to learn how to mow the lawn with the tractor. How could I turn down such a request? I only wish Jacob would show the same enthusiasm towards such work. Hey, I think it’s in Bella’s blood.  Once Bella heard the tractor fired up, she came out of the house eager to learn. I gave her a quick lesson and then turned the tractor over to her. Yikes!

Granted, my instructions were weak. I guess I failed to accentuate the part about straight lines and then staying FAR back from the slope towards the pond. She scared the daylights out of me more than once. And with the engine running, she couldn’t hear my screams for her to stop. I had to run to catch her a couple of times. By the time she finished, she had the gist of mowing operations down pat. And she was very proud of herself. I was proud of her too. I took over the mowing after Bella finished. Without saying anything, I did my best to hit the spots she missed  and then push mowed the entire front and rear slopes.

You know people often say that they’re stiff as a board? Well, let’s just say that I took that it to a whole new level Sunday afternoon. I wasn’t stiff as a board, I WAS a board. Ugh!!!!

It was after 630pm when my day in the yard was finished. The only thing I didn’t do was trim. Nothing left in the tank. Mindy decided to make pasta and meatballs for dinner. It was easy and fast. The meatballs tasted a little strange, but I didn’t complain. I was pretty hungry. Save for the nuts I snacked on just before dinner, I hadn’t had anything since eggs that morning.

And while I likened myself to a board earlier, after dinner and clean-up I was toast.  I snuck off to bed 8pm.