A good sweat for a good cause

Spent the morning and part of the afternoon working up a good June sweat in Dixie. By the time I was done my clothes were soaked but it was for good cause.

Cut the grass at the work first with a push mower. I get paid to do it and it doesn't take that long. Today was the typical cutting and spraying of weed killer on the spots the mower can't get to. (There is not much in life I like less than using a weed-eater grrrr)

After I'd shut off the mower and was spraying Roundup around the building, an incredibly beautiful young woman who works at the salon next door came out and stopped to talk to me. She must have seen me when I'd stripped off my shirt, wadded it up and used it to wipe the streaming sweat from my face and brow.

"Are they making ya work outside in this heat?" she asked, hands on her hips.

I said, "Yeah, but I'm used to it and they pay me for it. And besides, doing it today meant I got to stand here talking to you, so it's all good!"

She grinned, looked away for a second then looked back with her gorgeous smile, batting her eyes. "I'll see ya later Rob."

Ahh. Hell yeah.

From there I went to my parents' house to finish the job I'd started a couple of days ago: a new blueberry bed.

Landscaping and gardening is a passion of mine. Like all other things I am passionate about, I insist on doing it right.

The 90-foot bed used to be blackberries and asparagus but the plants have been played-out for the last few years and overtaken with weeds and undergrowth. I'd already killed that, burned it and tilled up the bed.

Then I'd spread out landscape fabric over the freshly-tilled dirt to keep weeds from coming back ever again, and planted the 7 blueberry plants. They're 'rabbiteye' blueberries, as we call them down here in the South. When ripe they're about as big as, well, a rabbit's eye! haha

Today I rolled out soaker hose (for irrigation) from plant to plant the length of the bed, and put down pine bark mulch on top of the bed. That will make watering easy for my parents.

From here all they will have to do is turn on the water once a week this first year until the plants are established. Then, all they'll have to do in years to come is pick the delicious blueberries.

Like I said...it felt good to work up a good sweat for a good cause. I'll have something to show for it. I'll get money for the grass cutting, and there will be pounds of fresh berries for years and years to come at my parents' house.

The photo of me with the newly-completed blueberry bed is OK. Just too bad I don't have a photo of the girl from the salon smiling at me.

But hey...I always like photos for my blogs...who knows what I might write about next?