Not that he should be - because it is my yard, after all.
And with all the friends that showed up, there wasn't much room to move without bumping into someone else.
And in a yard the size of mine... that's really saying something!
So anyway, today all of the branches, trimmings, and piles of whacked off greenery are still laying scattered from one end of the yard to the other... because they never got hauled off to the tip.
And I see little hope of it being dealt with in a timely manner, anywhere in the foreseeable future anyway.
And what little work The Old Guy did do, he did on his terms, and no one else's. I mean, c'mon... if we're planning on putting weed mat down over all the gardens, and then dumping the grass clippings and old straw and garden mulch etc on top of the weed mats... wouldn't it make far more sense to do that first, and then cut the grass?
But nooo... he felt that it was more important to cut the grass first, dump the 16 loads of grass from the catcher right IN the garden beds, and then inform me that we could easily shovel it all up later, put it in the wheelbarrow and then replace it once the weed mat was down.
But he did do the more "manly" stuff (okay - in his eyes anyway)... like pushing a mower around and around in circles, and then sitting down to a cold drink and supervising.
Then when we girls put our heads together, and decided to pull out an old star-post in the front yard that was braced to a now non-existent rose bush, so that it could be used as a brace for the water faucet, (it was just copper tubing coming up out of the ground with a faucet on top) he just took off in the truck without saying a word. And I thought : "bye-bye birdie"!
Once we finally got the star post in place (it took us almost an hour, numerous broken fingernails and quite a few less-than-lady-like swear words) and were just in the process of tying it to the copper piping... he came back.
With a fancy scmanchy, perfectly sized post that he had put together at home.
And a post hole digger.
Which meant that the post we had battled with for almost an hour, had to be pulled out again. And dirt was dug up and dumped unceremoniously onto the beds that we had in perfect condition - and ready for the weed mats!
But I have to admit that he was right, and his post is far superior to the patch-job we girls rigged up.
So all in all, we managed to get quite a lot of serious work done yesterday, and this morning I'm not only counting the huge piles of refuse, but I'm counting my blessings.
I have some of the most fantastic, wonderful, helpful friends in the world!
Friends who are willing to slave their bums off for me, break their nails and backs for me... and for nothing more than my undying gratitude - and maybe a few sausages in bread.
And the Old Guy?
I think I'll keep him.
After all he does barbecue a pretty delicious sausage!
