This yard project is going to take a long time, primarily because I am not especially strong and need to take lots of breaks so I don't flame out by noon, but also because I get sidetracked too easily.
Today I pulled up many, many weeds and made some preliminary measurements for a path I want to cut through to the back gate. Then I dug up the rosebush, which I wasn't sure I was going to do until I was doing it. Then I was really doing it, hate-chopping the roots with a pick and heaving it across the yard in triumph when it finally came up.
That stupid thing. It was here when we bought the house and I thought, a rosebush! How nice! I fertilized it and pruned it and watered it and mulched it every year, and it never did a damn thing until this spring, when hundreds of tender, hopeful buds appeared. I was so excited. Then all but two blooms got powdery mildew or something and half the leaves fell off.
It's been sucking up precious water and expensive compost and giving nothing back except sitting around, dominating that corner and looking like absolute shit on a stick for six years. Today I got a big, gnarly thorn embedded in my arm while I was weeding around it, and that was it. I went to the shed and got the pick.
Digging up a plant that old was hard work, and when I finally finished I flopped back into the dirt for a moment. I had a nice rest for a few seconds before I realized I was sprawled on an ant pile. By the time I was done hopping around and picking ants off my clothes, I was completely wrecked and anyway it was almost time to go to my sister's birthday party at TopGolf.
You see why this is all going to take a while.
After shot of the rosebush corner. It doesn't even deserve a before shot. (Actually I just forgot, but seriously, that plant was such an asshole.)