Edweird The Murderizer,or, Flower Power(less to stop me)

Once upon a time, a long time ago, in a fairytale land known as Marphil Loop, which I beseech you not to get confused with a fairly tall man known as Moretall Luke, a man planted some bushes. It coulda been his wife what planted 'em, I really don't know. I was not there. But digging and lifting and staring down at prepared soil and small plants that'll grow to big plants is the husband's work in this household. And it makes the husband very, very happy to do it. So happy in fact that I don't mind the 92 degree, 250% humidity of a Florida afternoon as I poke and prune and plant. Although sometimes I sit down in the lawn chair for a minute...and fall asleep. Ahhhh yes, good times.

So anyway, under the cigar tree was a mess of azeleas, interloper weed vines and who knows what else was growing, or living, there in the shadowy parts. What's a ramblin' man to do you may ask? Well, I ramble a bit myself, so lemme tell ya. You get them out of there, that's what you do. It's not easy. You get sweaty. And scratched. And tired. And learn that the REALLY big fire ants live in the shade of overgrown azeleas. The vines fight you for their survival at every turn and your neighbors tell you it's the wrong time of day to be doing all this work. Nevermind them. Go inside, grab a utensil and fork 'em. It's what you do and you enjoy doing it, heat stroke aside.

I hacked and cut and hauled azelea carcass most of the afternoon. Some of those branches were big around as my wrist (although admittedly I have a rather girlish wrist) and required me to set aside the pruning shears in favor of the more destructive pruning saw. It's destructive too. The protective sleeve has a picture of a shark with a gaping maw. Yeah, that tells you something right there.

Once I hacked them down I tried to dig up the stumps. Or as my more rednecky brethren and me call them, stomps. Well, that was a no go. So many roots and stuff I could only get the shovel about a half inch deep. I mean, I could have grabbed the axe and pick ax, put some back into it, and reached my objective. But like I said before... it was doggone HOT. So I slapped some Roundup on the stumps, therefore murderizing the poor suckers. I intend to use a combination of dirt digging tools and bags of store bought dirt (The beloved "Jungle Mix" because it has tigers and monkeys on the label. Oh, that and it's cheap.) to prepare the bed for planting and then just plant some shade loving stuff (Latin: shademeous stuffoli) around the dead azelea stumps. It'll look good if I do say so myself. And, I do.

OK, here's some picture and stories.

Here's the furniture I bought in the street at Dade City. From the lady that runs Kokopelli's. It looks so cool. Sorry about the sidewaysness. I can't find a tool to rotate pictures here in blogger. I have 2 of the one in the second sideways picture.

A chunk of swiss cheese with mices in the holes. Ha! It's really just a candle. Yep, the array of stuff you can buy in the street is just mind boggling.

And lastly, my favorite laptop computer with patented "Mouse-guard Protection". As you can see, everythig is just fine as wine. Under control. Cat-tastic.

Remove wrapper before using, out
Ramblin' Ed