It’s almost 0600 and I’m sitting alone here in the semi-dark. Well, not really alone … Ozzie is sitting by my left foot on the recliner foot rest in his normal spot. It’s comforting to have someone as loud as he is because I know he’ll alert me when a stranger tries to get in the house and do us harm. He gives me enough warning that I can ‘get my Ninja on’ thereby thwarting any attack. Although he’s given us many warnings over the years, virtually all of them were false alarms. He had his big chance last summer when we had coyotes in the lower field, but all he did was stare at them staring back at him. I suspect that was a good move on his part and if I were cute and fuzzy like he is I’d done the same thing. No need to prod that dragon.

Most of his false alarm barking is at the black cat that frequents the field below us. We know the cat is looking for field mice, being in a field and all, but Ozzie doesn’t care. He just barks away like it’s the end of the world if we don’t let him out there to take care of matters. So, we do, and he runs down to our fence and stands there barking so hard his stiff little front legs bounce off the ground. The cat ignores him, so he barks harder.

Thankfully, after a relatively short time, he gets a whiff of something strange and trots off to see where it is so he can pee on it. Then he pees on it again from the other side for good measure and trots triumphantly back to the house. He’s a funny little guy.

I probably shouldn’t be doing this right now because it’s so early and I haven’t had my meds, yet. I have my water, but failed, once again, to bring my pill bucket to my morning lounging area. With Ozzie peacefully ensconced by my feet, I hesitate to lower the foot rest. Actually, I’m torn between lowering the foot rest slowly, allowing him to gently wake up, or just drop it out from under him and study his reaction to free-falling. I wouldn’t do the latter. Ever. Again.

However, I feel a nap coming on and need to ingest my legally obtained meds so I can recline with a clear mind. And, either my stomach is growling, or Ozzie is snoring so I have to arise and find out which one it is. Can’t nap until I know.

It is much later, now — 8:30 pm – so I have no idea what happened after that last paragraph. I actually don’t remember writing all of that this morning so was surprised to discover it when I opened up the blog. Hmmm. As for what happened, I’ll just have to go with “got up and got my pills, then had my nap.”

The rest of the day was a blur of activity accompanied with a prodigious amount of sweating on my part.  Remember that rhododendron hedge I trimmed yesterday? This one?

Well, today I just whacked it all down.

You may think that was a rash move on my part, but I had permission to do it! How about that? Diane thought it would be a good idea, too, for me to apply some of my world-class zen pruning skills. So, when she left for her eye appointment, just after lunch, I broke out my trusty plug-in electric chain saw and went to work. I did all this and didn’t sustain any major injuries which may surprise most of you. Just a few scrapes and pokes, but nothing that actually bled. I, myself, found this interesting because it seems to be my destiny to bleed, at least a little, at some point in an evolution of this magnitude. But I didn’t. I don’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved.

I’ll go with relieved, for now.

The entire time I was working on dismantling the four rhoddies, I rehearsed in my mind what I’d be writing here. That’s unusual for me because I normally just turn it loose without thinking ahead of time. However, my overriding thought throughout the mayhem was that Diane would get home and be horribly disappointed that I could do such a thing. Before she left I again asked if she was OK with this and she said, “Yes.” I asked if she would commit that to writing, and she said, “No.” Not even a text, giving me permission? “No.”

So, as you can see, I was treading in dangerous territory, relying on my well documented faulty memory, to move forward with this project. But I did it.

When Diane returned, she said, “Good job. Why is the ladder still up against the gutter?” She’s been giving me a hard time about the ladder for a few weeks now. Maybe not that long, but a while for sure. I put it up there to address a dripping gutter while it was nice and dry. I was going to leave it up until I was sure it wouldn’t leak. That, and to replace the wood I ripped off in the process. But, I removed the ladder and called it good. I wonder how long it will be before she asks when I’m going to fix the hole I made.

Another thing I did today was run the lawn mower around the front, side, and back yards, to even up the dandelions. The grass is mostly brown, and not growing, but the dandelions just won’t quit. So, I took care of it. In the process, I sucked up all the residue of today’s evolution that couldn’t be picked up with a rake. The mower is excellent for jobs like that. It actually … well … my mower actually kind of sucks pretty good. My backup choice was taking the big shop vac and vacuum the lawn. That would have been tedious. I know. And I will never do that again, unless I can figure a way to put bigger wheels on the vac. The ones it comes with are just too small to roll smoothly on grass.

Over the past couple of days we had visits from Jennie with Lydia, and Jeran in tow. They spent last weekend camping at Big Eddy, and, knowing my prolific ability to injure myself, stopped by to show me theirs. Both of them hurt themselves running around the camp ground, in the dark, finally falling victim to some hard to see ropes holding down a neighbor’s tent. I would never do something like that. Mainly because it involves running. Here’s what they did to themselves.

Pretty nifty, huh?

Now, supper is done, I’m clean, and it’s time to just relax while watching some guys beat the crap out of each other with MMA. But first, I’ll just give you a visual on my lunch. It’s a three poached eggs and four pieces of toast. I made two sandwiches. Nice.