The weather has finally improved enough to get some yard work done, so Marilyn put that on the honey-do list. In fact it is #458 on the list. The temperature was in the 60’s today so I made an executive decision to skip #1 thru #457 and get right to #458, work in the yard. I scrounged around in the garage trying to find the pruning shears. It took a while but I finally found them, under my work bench. Right next to an empty beer can and two Big Mac Wrappers. I oiled them up and was ready to get to it.

“I’m going to prune the roses,” I said to Marilyn as I headed out the back door.

“Wear some gloves, you always get all scratched up when you prune roses,” she replied.

Gloves, does she think I’m some kind of wimp? “I don’t need any gloves,” I assured her.

I started pruning, I pruned several large dead canes and a bunch smaller canes. The more I pruned, the more those roses fought me. If I cut a small cane the roses only stuck me with one or two thorns. When I attacked with a two handed grip against the large dead canes the roses would stick me with dozens of thorns. Sometimes three or four canes would attack me at a time. By the time I was finished with the roses my hands and arms looked like someone had drawn all over them with a red ball point pen. I was all scratched up.

“I’ll just wear a long sleeve shirt and keep my hands in my pockets the rest of the day,” I thought to myself, while remembering Marilyn’s warning.

Next I decided to tackle the garden shed, it was a mess. Every useless thing that I don’t know what to do with I put in the garden shed. I opened the shed door and saw a tiller that hasn’t worked for ten years, I’ll fix it when I get around to it. I saw a pile of empty boxes, I might put something in them someday. I saw about a million of those little black plastic cell packs that we buy our annual flowers in each year, maybe I’ll start some seeds in them someday. There was a broken fishing rod, that will come in handy. The lawnmower, now that works just fine, it’s a good mower. Right behind that was the old lawn mower that quit working about three years ago, and behind that mower was the mower that quit working about ten years ago. Shovels, rakes, hoes, tools all over the place. I closed the door, no sense jumping right into anything. I’ll clean the shed next week.

Well, I made a little headway on the honey-do list today. I sat on the back porch for a while then went back inside. I went in the basement bathroom and washed all the scratches on my hands and arms, they stung a little. I put on a long sleeve shirt that I got out of the laundry room, I put my scratched up hands in my pockets and went upstairs.

Marilyn was in the living room. “How’d you do, get much done?” she asked.

“Oh yea, I got a lot done, I pruned the roses and almost got the shed cleaned out.” I told her.

I can’t wait to find out what #459 on the list is.   I know it’s comming.