Need a suit of armor

Every summer I carry on and whine about my yard work. You would figure my yard is gorgeous with all the time I spend in it, but the truth is it still looks awful. I am just one small woman out there trying to rip out and replace bushes that are almost 30 years old. The ones in the back went pretty much untrimmed for over 10 years. They give me privacy, but they have also grown out of control.

So I try. I have learned many things the hard way. Wear safety goggles when working with anything that can get near eyes, especially things like electric hedge clippers. Oil the tools and put them away. Wear work boots with steel toes. Did you ever drop a wheelbarrow or hedge clippers on bare toes?

Wear a padded bra. You know there is a story there, right? I was working in the back yard a few years ago, trying to trim some stray branches off the snowball and lilac bushes. Those branches are long, thin, and strong. My carpal tunnel syndrome had not been fixed yet, and I sometimes had trouble holding onto things. I was trimming away, happily off in another world in my mind. I had my heavy boots, long pants, and a t-shirt. Who needs a bra to do yard work? All of a sudden a branch slipped out of my hand and *zing!* snapped directly onto my nipple, bringing tears to my eyes. That is not a mistake to be made twice.

I remembered that lesson last night when a branch snapped back and stung my arm pretty hard, leaving a bruise on it.

On a good note, it was cloudy and hot, so the bee-things were all inside, doing bee stuff and finally let me get the really big weeds out of the front bed. One sentry was onto me, but his heart wasn't in it. I am sure I saw him looking the other way. Or are the nasty ones all shes?