what an exhausting dog to live with

saw this the otherday at the dogpark, that's a chesapeak bay retriever and that stick in his mouth is a 4x4 that was 4' long! The owner was tossing it in and the dog would leap into the water and grab it and run back with it over a waterfall or up a steep 12' embankment for dozens of repetitions. And, possibly best of all, when the dog god back to the guy he wasn't very good about giving it back and would dance around and take victory laps of the field showing off and waggeling his trophy ears and tail up, prancing like a lippezaner and pleased as friggin punch.

Gar dunning

I've not been doing my house maintenance. Part of it is... aww crap, it's mainly because there is so much pain wrapped up in owning this house that I haven't wanted to have more to do with it than I've had to, I didn't want to invest myself that was going to bring up so many memories overlaid with a lace of pain.

But it's damn well time to start doing some things. Not up to construction yet, but the the first step in landscaping, gardening and such is destruction. I should have done it over a month ago but I didn't and I forgive myself for not doing it (yeah I know that was shrinkspeachy as hell and trite to boot but it was fucking difficult to write, particularly since I insist on meaning it).

So anyway, in the exercise that is life going on, I got out the loppers and like an angry god, smote the struggling living things which had grown strong and tall in a place and manner that displeased me. Then I dumped the pile of brushy crap I gathered from that and bumped it in the drainage ditch behind my house. To do that I had to do move some soil from around my gates (you see this is not just the sloth of a year but too close to two) and in doing so discovered I am fat with worms.

What a boost that gave my spirits! Earthworms, fat and wriggling, all over my yard! I love earth worms, their simplistic systems echoing my own but laid so bare they tie me to their earthy nature. Suddenly I felt a weight slide aside and I seemed to remember things I hadn't known I'd forgot. I went and cleaned the dead branches out of the sage between my nmeighbor and me. I am trying to decide if I want to keep it, certainly not where it is though. So I tortured it, I snipped out the deadstem and then I made an effort at braiding the limbs, there was much cracking and breaking. If it survives (as I expect it to) it should be hardier for it. I took the first steps to clear out the bed around the front bay, Nancy threatens to come collect her matrimony. I feel like Nancy wants to take my memories of her mother with her, realized in the plants and items she left when she died. I don't mind the things so much (though I have a few I insist upon) but the living legacy cuts deeper. I loved Virginia Rogers, she was like my mom and unlike her in so many ways I would have loved for my mom to be. Tears skulk into my eyes as I think about it now, I am honored to have known her.

(no subject)

I may need this.