Winter Duties

You know the problem with winter duties that you don’t do in the cooler days of crisp colorful autumn?

You have to do them in January. And it’s cold, grey and drizzling in January.

We have to trim the laurel hedges so they don’t grow into trees, because if they grow into trees, there will be no foliage around the trunks to give us privacy (so people can’t tell that I’m not weeding my garden).

Our gardener said we can’t use an electric trimmer because it will create a scab on the hedges that won’t allow sun to get in and as a result the inside branches will die. So I’m doing it by hand. I don’t mean to complain or anything, but my arms and hands are trembling so much from the effort I could barely hold the camera (or type this post).

Where is my butler? Geeves? Geeeeeeeves?

Forget that! Where is Edward Scissorhands?

You might be asking why Sir cannot trim the hedges.  As a matter of fact, I’ve asked him that many times as the winter progresses (too fast in my opinion – the crocuses are already coming up!). But the thing is, he is creating.

He created these shelves (yes, yes, I know it’s not pretty yet; consider this a “before” picture),

and he turned this Ikea cabinet into a built-in structure by extending it to the wall.

(not finished either – first we have to bring everything in from the garage to see what we have, and then we need to arrange it in a non-cluttered, pretty yet useful way)

(help)

Now he has his eyes set on a built-in closet in the laundry room, which will increase our house value exponentially. The French will all say, “why what eez thees? A closet zat eez een ze wall?” Such a novelty.

I cleaned this up for you. Seriously, it was much worse; I even removed all the clothes hanging from the exercise bike.

So to allow Sir the time he needs to plan and build, I am tackling the manual labor. I am really not cut out for this type of life. Although I did enjoy trimming the pine, which brings me back to more festive times. “Oh Christmas tree, Oh Christmas tree …”

And then, of course, there is the clean-up.

I need servants. “Kids! Oh kiiiiids. Wanna use that swing set again?” Hmm, may be on the young side for forced labor.

Okay, now this was not my fault.  It grows right under the tilleul and ash trees, gets no sun and therefore the big branches can’t grow all those little tiny branches that fill things out nicely.

Oh look what I almost stepped on. The lavender I planted in the Fall that is supposed to keep this corner from being invaded by waist-high weeds.

And here’s the tundra, which will have to be dug up in preparation for Spring planting because I, once again, did not do it in the Fall as I was supposed to.

Eesh. So grey and depressing. How’s about a little color?

Hey, here’s a hat and shirt. Stay warm and well-fed.

I’m going back inside.

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