Yardwork...

My family knows a dark secret about me... I hate doing yard work. I am ok once I am started but getting there is a real chore. I love things that grow and look beautiful but I hate maintaining them. When I was 14, my dad suggested that I contract with the apartment building dwellers on our Army post in Germany to maintain their yards. For 10 - 12 dollars a month I mowed, weeded, and trimmed around several 6 and 8 family apartment buildings. It was a year round job so I shoveled and salted in the winter too - sometimes 2 and 3 times a day. Although I enjoyed having the pocket money it provided, it made for some long days, particularly in the wintertime. By the time we moved back to the states in 1971, I owned two power lawn mowers and an assortment of gardening tools that would fill Juan and Paco's pick-em-up truck. Don't know what ever happened to those... I think my distaste for the green-thumb stuff dates back to my first horticultural experience. I was 9, I think. We lived in Chambersburg, PA. My dad took me out one day to an overgrown lawn, pointed to the push mower, and said "This is your job." I strained and pushed for hours on that mower and made little progress. I was convinced that the push mower was developed during the Inquisition by Jesuit torturers to extract confessions. Anyway, I worked at that for over a week, I think, and never finished. The worst part about it is that now I have no children around to share this wonderful experience with... when we come to visit, don't ask.