Weekend Weeding Warrior....not!

This is a true story of my weekend gardening activities. Not one word of it has been exaggerated, as the wife will attest.

I went out to do some weeding and pruning this weekend as I have neglected my "hour a day" duties in the yard (mainly due to those stinkin' Japanese Beetles). I find weeding and pruning quite relaxing, so I was looking forward to a few minutes in the sun. I get my loppers out and find an unsuspecting tree with a wild branch needing to be pruned. Ready. Aim......Sure enough--I make one snip of a tree branch and literally Japanese Beetles RAIN DOWN on my head. Pour down. It was disgusting. I'm shaking bugs out of my hair and they're buzzing around me and falling down my shirt and getting all over the place. The dogs are watching me do a crazed bug dance. I survive, getting every last beetle out of my hair and out of my bra. I think to myself, "next time, wear a baseball hat." Maybe I should have been thinking, "DUH! Look at the tree leaves before pruning and see if the leaves are infested with those damned beetles."

So much for pruning the trees.

I move on to my "back woods garden," a small stretch of land on the city's property, way in the back yard--my own little tacky weed-o-torium. I've basically got a billion day lillies, some ferns, a plethora of hostas, some Autum Joy Sedum back there--nothing fancy but all mine. I've neglected this garden mainly due to the mosquitoes. Unfortunately, the neighbors behind the area have a standing pool of gross water, which probably is the breeding ground for the main population of mosquitoes in the area. I haven't been able to get back to my little plot of land due to the skeeters. I figured it was hot and sunny and during the day and that the mosquitoes wouldn't be out yet, so I left Beetlemania and went to the backwoods....

....no sooner did I get there, mosquitoes are DIVE BOMBING my very being--buzzing in my ear, landing on my arms, getting all over me. I'm swatting and swearing and ducking and yelling and the dogs are just staring at me, wondering what the hell is now the matter. Here is a photo of Freckles staring out at me, wondering what the fuss is all about. I give up and run for cover, leaving the weeds to fend for themselves.....

I decide to pull weeds growing under the maple tree, as no one and nothing (including us) like the maple tree--no beetles, no mosquitoes, no nothing hanging around there. I bend down and start plucking out the stray strands of grass now popping up threw the mulch, happy as a clam, enjoying myself, humming along....when.....
......PLOP!

SPLAT!

I am not one bit kidding when I say a BIRD SHIT ON ME. Really.

First Japanese Beetles, then misquitoes, then bird shit.

I went in the house.