One Thing Always Leads To Another....

After posting yesterday, I took the boys outside to do their doggy thing, clearing the decks for a long, undisturbed afternoon writing session.  As I'm standing in the backyard, in the freakishly hot sun, I notice the lawn needs mowing.

Deciding to do a quick mow, I'm hoping this will be the last time until Spring.  Then I have to edge.  And crap, look, the last scraggly tomatoes are falling off the vines, so I pull out the plants, drop them over the embankment for the wildlife, and plant dahlia bulbs in their place.  This reminds me I have a huge bag of daffodils (100 bulbs) that need to get in the ground before they sprout, so I get the shovel, the hoe, and the axe, and pick my three planting spots.

Wondering about that axe?  I live on a mountain.  My house is built on solid bedrock.  Sometimes, if I'm lucky, I can plant something in a miraculous sweet spot of real soil; most of the time however, I have to break through the earth's crust and the only way is with my big ol' axe.  Yesterday the score was: Mountain = 2, Me = 1.

So, I make a long trench along the driveway--the one place where I got by using just the shovel and hoe--then I hacked, chopped and cleaved my way along the front path, and finished by excavating a nice triangular section beside the garage.

I thought I was gonna die.
 
Did I mention it was freakishly frigging hot?  My tee shirt was soaked, lower back was killing me from the digging and hewing, then near the garage, I tripped on a buried tree root and luckily (!?!) fell toward the soft, loamy compost I'd put in my freshly dug hole.  Heading down, I flung the remaining 30 or so daffodils I had in my hands straight up into the air as I tried to save myself.
 
I've said before that I have a very long, steep driveway; what do you think those damn bulbs did after they stopped flying?  Yep, that's right, they rolled.  And rolled.  And rolled some more.  Several actually made it down the drive, across the road, and halfway down the bloody bank.  I felt like a total idiot chasing the bouncing, wobbling bulbs.  And really, they aren't round like balls, they're weirdly pear-shaped, so how they could move like they did is a mystery to me.
 
At last, when I finally finished the planting and clean up, I dragged myself up two flights of stairs, ready to collapse in the middle of the living room floor.  Alas, too bad for me, I discovered more than two hours had passed, and now it was time to take the dogs for the mile hike to collect the mail.  The fun never stops in my world...no sirree.
 
Now, all these chores needed doing, and though they weren't on the agenda to do yesterday, sooner or later they did have to be done.  The problem was, yesterday I was supposed to be tackling that big elephant threatening to stampede my book plot.  But here's the good part--besides getting the garden work done--I worked it out!  Somewhere between mowing the lawn and rending the earth with my trusty axe, the solution came to me.
 
It's just a shame that by then it was too late:  I was tired, muscles were screaming, back was aching.  All I could think of doing, once the boys and I had gathered the mail, was to sit down and have a glass of wine, or two.

Needless to say, my only recourse was to take the rest o' the day off.  Which I did.   And today I'm feeling refreshed, pleased that the outside chores are done, and other than the brutal aches and agonizing pains, I'm raring to go, and ready to tackle the story.

Right after I take a few more Advil...and strap myself into this back brace...