Many moons ago I started this garden trilogy. I had no idea, when I first began to tell you about our fateful day in the garden, that this would become so looooooong...but there you are. It's an involved story (at least in my head).
And today I'm going to finish my tale of garden woes with "Move Your Grass!" (the newly chosen, alternate title for "Bruises and Blood (in the Garden)".:
The same day that I was involved in veggie sex (see earlier post: "Sex in the Garden") I got very physical with one of our tall grasses. It was that kind of day.
We have a number of tall grasses in the back - 2 flank the patio, 2 are bookends to a flower garden and 2 create a "doorway" to the cutting garden and veggie patch. Unfortunately, one of the patio grasses grew so large that it was threatening to choke out a beloved boxwood (beloved because its smell reminds us of the gardens of our dear - and departed - family matriarch).
This troublesomely huge grass was the one that I got into it with. Well, to be honest, Manchild did alot - ok all - but I was there! And I really did help. I did!
Digging that monster up took a long time - and a number of tools. But digging it up wasn't the hardest part. Moving it was! We had to come up with a plan to get it to its new home - 50 feet across the yard.
Besides being unearthly heavy (Manchild estimates 150 lbs., I say 200) it was unwieldy as hell - offering absolutely no assistance, despite my pleas (and really, how much effort would it have required just to lean into us? All I asked for was a little help, but tall grasses are known to be obstinate).
First plan: grab the trusty wheelbarrow, hoist the grass in and voila! But the effort must've looked, to the casual observer, like some 3 Stooges deal. We struggled.
We wanted the thing to stay in one piece, but there was nothing to grab hold of. It's hard trying to keep a 3 ft. diameter bunch of leaves (that give nasty "paper cuts") together - while lifting its 150 - 200 lb. butt.
We tried - and then just as we hoisted the grass the tiniest bit the wheel barrow slowly rolled away. Grrrr. Ok, rocks under the wheels, that'll hold it. Try again. That time the wheel barrow fell over.
Next try - we actually got the fat-ass grass right up to the edge of the wheel barrow and the wheel barrow side began to bend - I told you that the sucker was heavy! Ugh! "Eff" the wheel barrow.
Next plan: Well, what's left? Rolling. So, that's what we did. Together we rolled the sucker to the new hole. Not that rolling was easy either. The grass had other plans - like heading east when we went west. But eventually (and with most of its parts intact) it sat right in front of its new home.
That's where the blood and bruises comes in. I noticed blood running down my arms. I'd gotten about 47 "paper cuts" (leaf cuts, in actuality) on my arms and hadn't even noticed. Such was my concentration!
Slightly-Brit came to supervise the next part - getting the grass into his new home. She wanted just the right kind and amount of dirt under the grass - we could afford no mistakes - this guy had to be perfectly comfy in his new home because neither he nor us could take another bout of moving.
There were a few things that needed to be fixed - a little more dirt in the hole, a little less rocks in the hole. And now we get to the "bruises". I was worn. I'm not particularly coordinated on a good day, but when I'm tired all bets are off.
Manchild disappeared (he had every right to - he'd done most of the digging that got 'ole GrassAss out of his first home) and Slightly-Brit was working out some other garden issues - going back and forth between supervising the preparation of the new hole and dealing with the other things.
Unfortunately, she was "forth" instead of "back" when I flung a rock up out of the new hole (in an uncoordinated fashion, because I was - well - uncoordinated). The rock landed right on her foot. She made an odd noise, bent down over her foot for a few minutes, and then disappeared. When I asked if she was OK (when she was bent down) she made more odd noises. And that was the last I heard of her for some time.
Once I finished getting the rocks out and the dirt in, according to the instructions Slightly-B had given me, Manchild had to help me set the grass in. That part was no trouble. But we kept wondering how Slightly-B was doing - she wasn't answering us (though we both thought we heard the freezer open and close a few times and ice cube trays cracking). Jeez! It was just a small rock.
I saw her foot later - ewwwwww, what a bruise! She limped for days and can still only wear certain shoes (it's hard to find ones that don't go across any part of the top of the foot!).
When all those grasses were young someone told us that tall grasses were a bad idea - they pantomimed grabbing them the way you'd grab someone's pony-tail - and yanking them straight up and out. We should've listened!