The Path...

(partially finished pathway to the shed--note: the large piles of roots strewn on the side)

"Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence.” Henry David Thoreau

Ok. If you are thinking that this is going to be a spiritually deep and insightful post today...you are waaaay off.

This is the story of my new little pathway to my shed. (deep, eh?!)

Batting my eyes and speaking in the softest, most appealing voice that I could garner, I said to Dave yesterday: "Honey, how about if we make a path to my shed so that I can get to it without getting my shoes all dirty and muddy?"

Silence.

"It doesn't have to be anything fancy," I continued, "just a few of those little concrete squares placed here and there."

Well, I guess that the eye batting worked, because he agreed to do this "little" project with me.

So, off we went to Home Depot where I picked out 15 terra cotta concrete squares for my new path.

Now the fun began.

What I didn't realize was that laying a path wasn't just a matter of throwing them down on the dirt and voila! the path is made. Instead, Dave let me know that we needed to dig down into the dirt for each one and get it seated properly in the ground.

So, the digging commenced.

What neither of us had realized before starting this little project was that the chosen path was filled with a multitude of large, far-reaching ROOTS below the surface!

Dave used a hatchet (!) and began to chop away root by root. It was incredibly strenuous work trying to cut these roots away. If we didn't get them all out, the square wouldn't seat properly. I had the job of using the claw tool to get the dirt mixed up and level...and inevitably I continued to find more and more roots for Dave to chop.

There was also a huge sheet of strong black plastic that we had laid over the ground 25 years ago to keep the weeds from sprouting up. This, too, had to be cut away before we could get to some of the earth below...and, of course, this removal exposed more roots!

What I haven't mentioned is that we recently had a pretty good rain and the ground was still pretty soaked and muddy. So, there we were--- the two of us-grunting and groaning-and, getting totally covered with muddy dirt.

We worked until the sun went down and we could no longer see what we were doing out there...(thank heavens for the respite!!).

As we got into the garage, I closed the door, looked at the two of us covered from head to toe in mud and said, "OK, strip down before stepping into the house!". There was no way that all of that mess was going to be spread into my downstairs room. So, there we were, stripped down to our skivvies and laughing our weary heads off as I began to load the washing machine in hopes of reviving our mud-stained work clothes.

We tried to finish up this afternoon, but it ended up raining on us before we could get the job done...so, it will have to be put off until another time. I never imagined that this little project would become such a huge one with an exorbitant amount of work; leaving us both sore and achy today and realizing that we might be getting a bit too old for this kind of manual labor!

Something a bit disconcerting did occur to me a little bit ago. If we Dave chopped up all of those roots, does that mean that I will have killed off all of the shrubs in that area of my yard?

I guess that we will know more when Springtime arrives this year... : O