war wounds

There are scratches on my forearms because I couldn't remember where I carefully put away my leather rose gloves. I have a scrape on my shin from when I was lifting my zuchinni bowl up and tripped over the veggie bed fence. And then yesterday I fell off the retaining wall reaching for a weed thus scraping up my forearm and twisting my back. I'm just not going to go into sunburn and bug bites.

Why in movies are gardeners always depicted with flowing sundresses, with lovely beribboned straw hats placing long stemmed blossoms into trough baskets from weed free gardens? There may even be classical music playing softly in the background while some gorgeous man looks on lovingly.

In reality, our t-shirts are stained from wiping the sweat off our faces with dirty hands. There's permanent dirt in our fingernails. When it's too hot to wear long pants, our knees have punctures in them from crawling around on the ground, and our hair looks like crap from sweat and humidity. Having fun yet?

What you don't see in the movies, is Juan and Pedro waiting in the driveway so they can start working while Mrs. Strawhat with her new gloves and basket finishes cutting a bouquet.

So true :) Yet would you trade places with Mrs Strawhat?

My husband cannot understand why I have so much fun just walking through the garden. He cannot see 1/100th of what my eye catches: weeds to pull, new starts doing well, that flower bug that is going to burst tomorrow, that thriving plant that started as a stringy start a couple of months ago... The garden talks to you in so many ways. The scrapes and scratches and aching backs get forgotten once you can bend over to reach for the pesky weeds again. And we all will do it over and over and over :)

Oh, my God - I was thinking all this today, ESPECIALLY why the gardening magazines show gorgeous people in their gardens, perhaps deadheading a flower, not a speck of dirt on their hands.

I went to the grocery today after several hours in the garden, just to pick up milk. I thought, "Well, in and out - don't want to offend anyone". I felt like a bum - dirt, sweat, bug bites, bruises, etc.

Martha Stewart - GET REAL!

Duck, are you OK after falling off a retaining wall? It may not hurt much now, but that sounds kinda serious - please get it checked out.

"Happy" Late Summer Gardening, Friends!

Hee hee, sherriseden. I make quick runs to the grocery store or Home Depot, etc. after gardening too, and sometimes wonder if I'll get refused entry for being a "bag lady". BTW, since I live in the next town to you, if you see (and smell, very likely) a very grubby woman in line with you next time you're in a store, it may very well be me!!

How funny! Why do I feel like I have to schedule my day so I can run errands before I get dirty?
Duck - hope it's all just temporary aches and pains.
So I'm not the only one with "dimpled" knees???

Scabs on my shin and forearms but advil took care of the twisted back after the fall. If I hadn't had to sit through 2 days of meetings in horrid hotel conference room chairs I'd be right-as-rain.

I don't have a Pedro or Juan, but I do have a Susie. She comes in once a week for 2-4 hours to help with the flower beds. It is my big xmas gift from my husband for the past two years. But it doesn't matter I still get dirty, sweaty, and a bit beat up. And I have a strawhat but it looks like me - dirty, sweaty and a bit beat up.

Somehow this sounds suspiciously related to my fear of "Better Homes and Gardens" (to which I suscribe).

How DO they do that, anyway?

Welcome to my jungle...

;-)

edited to say... my knees have dimples, but I think it might be "cellulite"

LOL

This message was edited Aug 4, 2010 9:53 PM

P.S. Duck, you had to endure TWO all day meetings?? Dear God, I remember those days. I lost my job in April and meetings are what I DO NOT miss.

Weed - "Welcome to my Jungle" . . . isn't that a song? Love it! : )

Hey,The only time Id like Jaun and Pedro to show up is when I need 10 wheel barrow loads of dirt or mulch moved !!!! Or raking the 1 acre of woods yard in the spring,While Iam on my Ugly knees in the flower garden pulling weeds and planting !!!! Enya I see exactly what you see and my DH sees, not what I see !!! LOL Ive done my share of going to town with all my dirt and sweat in tow,even to work..I clean an office 3 days,and I take care of their flowers,soo I go in my dirty clothes..Hey we could have an ugly knee contest,mine are not pretty either !!!!

My knees haven't seen daylight in years (when I stopped wearing skirts!) but finally had the nerve to buy shorts this year, only for bicycling. As you can imagine, my arms are tan (not so much my hands since I wear gloves due to poison ivy) and my legs are achingly white.
I think the worst representation I've seen of what gardening is all about was in the movie "It's Complicated" with Meryl Streep's perfect vegetable garden with those impossibly round, symmetrical cabbages in the front row.

I had to laugh at your adventures duck_toller. I am also usually a little banged up from gardening. I have to tell a funny story. Yesterday I saw the new neighbor outside while I was planting a new coneflower that I just bought. I thought I would walk over and introduce myself. I knew that I had some bits of mulch imbedded into my knees that wouldn't brush off, and that I was covered with bug spray (my perfume of the last couple of weeks). I went over to talk to her. We talked for awhile, and she was nice and very polite, but kind of reserved. I came back home and went into the bathroom. I was horrified to see this big smear of mud across my face. I don't know what the new neighbor thought (maybe I don't bath). Hopefully she saw me planting my coneflower before I went over to talk to her, and just thought that I got dirty while gardening. Let's hope. I may not be seeing much of her in the future.

ROFL !

She is probably thinking of you as the eccentric neighbor, possibly a bit dangerous!

Gardening is about getting close to the dirt. I am sure some of us get closer to it than others. It's all a matter of taste and physical abilities. I still kneel on my knees and hug the weeds while carrying them to the compost pile while I see my neighbor carring a nice knee pad and a classy canvas bag for the weeds. The result is the same really :)

I did not realize that duck actually fell down off the retaining wall. I thought it was a figure of speech. Advil is sure a nice thing but I tend to soak in a bath tub after everyone is off to bed to quiet the back and knees. Also good for the dirt under the nails and scabs.

Well, just like you should never trust a skinny cook, I don't think you could fully trust a gardener that doesn't get dirty!

(my apologies to any skinny cooks out there, but I'm sticking to my guns on the clean gardener thing)

:-)

I have 1 of those knee sponges its real nice if you decide to drag it around with you !!! LOL,and my weed bag ,I bought this year,it flouresent orange and really bigggg,like what is it big,its a collapsable kind,no martha stewart here.TG I have not done anything really stupid this year to hurt myself YET,other than poking a hole in my toenail with the storm door ,well mytoenails and fingernails match dirt under them !!!!

Busy Gardener, LOVE that story! Next time you see her, ask if she was impressed by the Secret Underground (hee, hee) Hort Club Symbol you were wearing that day. Say, "We paint it on our face during important rituals. It has deep meaning." Wonder how often she'll come over to visit!! : )

Hugger, I have my two trusty beat up buckets I carry around: the red one holds tools, the blue one weeds and prunings. I use the red for tools so I can spot it right away if I drop it to run from a bee or other crisis. : )

I strap on knee pads. The ones with gel are particularly nice.

I paint my buckets too !!! they need repainted ,I try to get creative,they have polka dots now.

My only beauty secret is pedicures. For $30 plus tip (but I usually have a coupon) you sit in these huge massage chairs while a very understanding lady cleans the garden off my feet, massages my feet and calves with hard core lotion, and paints my toes. They bring me soda, magazines, have girly shows on TV. All good stuff. It worries me that the employees are horrified that the "garden lady" is showing up again, but heck I don't speak Viet Namese and I try to tip extra well. The chairs are the best after gardening all weekend. I'd pay $30 for those alone!

Sounds like heaven!

ROFL -- Duck, you do make that sound like a bargain! I have a couple of pretty funky toenails that I'm not sure anyone would want to deal with, but a foot massage is really tempting!

Their job is to make ugly toes pretty again! I've appologized, and they've always been very gracious.....it's not like they will refuse your business.

Even if I'm doing my own pedicure (and usually am).....there is nothing like polish to hide the dirt under your toenails that just won't come out.