I'm so tired...

I'm so tired,
I'm so sore,
I ain't gonna do it for a nickel no more.
Fifteen cents is my price,
for a quarter, I'll do it twice.
Shoe shine!

Do you ever wonder where in tarnation things are filed in our brains?  A guy I dated in high school would recite this in a sing-song fashion and laugh at himself every time.  (I'm glad I met and married Mr. A instead.  :D )

Anyway, I am so tired, and it's highly possible I'm going to be so sore...but not from shining shoes...from pruning crepe myrtles, tea olives, lantana, bridal wreath, flowering crabapples, seven sisters roses.  Additionally, Mr. A pruned pines and Bradford pears.  I hauled the trimmings from all into the woods, a decent trek from any given point A when one is working on nearly seven acres.  When I typed out the list of plants and trees we pruned, it sounds like a lot, but it doesn't look as lush as it sounds.  All that is spread over seven acres and it still looks piteously sparse around here.

I also spent time preparing pots for plants, emptying soil from which the nutrients have been drained.  I toted a few plants from Mr. A's shop where they spent this awful winter to their destinations on the back deck and front porch.  I can't lift the rest, so I will bribe the 19-year-old who sleeps and showers here to move them.  I'll offer him a job paying $20 an hour and tell him if he completes in under an hour, I'll still pay an hour's wage.  It works every time.

I won't be paid a nickel, fifteen cents or a quarter, but the rewards in beauty will bring dividends all spring and summer.

Mr. A bought some loppers with a ratchet thingy inside which made the pruning easier, still we are beat.   

Tired is good.  I'm not complaining.  I will sleep like a baby tonight.

And I'm looking happily forward to much more of this type work.  I hate winter.  Did you hear me?  I HATE WINTER!  You won't hear me complain about the south Georgia heat!

But I am tired.