Monday, June 15, 2009

Men who weed-whack and the women who love them...

...today on Knatolee's World!

Sixteen years ago, I married a great guy. Kind, gentle, funny, patient, smart, brings me tea in bed every morning, rubs girly-lotions into my feet at night, loves animals even though he was brought up without pets and fell for a woman who would have eleventeen-hundred cats and dogs and chickens and squirrels without a husband to keep her in check, is helping me assemble 40 beehive frames...

And is a great dog-daddy!

(Of course, he didn't get all that grey in his beard until he'd spent a few years married to me, but thatt's okay, because he's four years younger than me and the older Gordon looks, the better I look by comparison! I am aging him faster than he is aging me.)

G is very tolerant. He let me put a skirt on him and take his picture, back when we lived in Nova Scotia and blogs were still a figment of someone's imagination. It's possible that by posting this photo, I have signed my own death warrant, but then no one has ever called me "restrained"...

(I collect used wool skirts to cut up and use in my rug-hooking projects. This was one of them. I'm not into cream pleats!)

That said, the Lad is Scottish and he did get married in a kilt...

(He looks a little tense. But at this point, the deed was done and there was no turning back.)

So as you can see, I have a whole lotta love for Mr. Beardo. But I am being sorely tried these days. Last year, the Lad got himself a brand new, gas-powered weed-whipper (or whacker, depending what part of the world you hail from!) The thing is so fearsome that they actually supplied a chest protector with it. Since its arrival, my flowers have quivered in fear. Last Friday, I found the amputated daylily. I thought it was just this one flower that had fallen under the rotating string of death.

I was wrong.

I am also now the proud owner of a decapitated crocosima, and this...this... this TRAVESTY:



...which used to be a little flower bed full of THIS:

Pretty. Pretty flowers! Prettyprettypretty! Absolutely no freaking resemblance to grass, beyond the sharing of the colour green.

They USED TO add a nice little shot of colour outside the pump house attached to our barn. Now, it looks like a herd of starving, sharp-toothed goats rampaged in the yard while I had my back turned...

(Note complete and utter absence of perennials.)

But one good thing has come out of this weed-whackin' atrocity. I have discovered The Sisterhood of Chicks Whose Menfolk Can't Control Themselves When They Have a Power Tool in their Hands. TSOCWMCCTWTHAPTITH for short.

The TSOCWMCCTWTHAPTITH (wait, that's redundant. That reads as The The Sisterhood...whatever!) has taken me in, held me in the warmth of their petal-splattered arms, and shared so many tragic, tragic stories of men who can't tell a blade of grass from any other green thing in the universe. (Watch out, frogs! Time to invest in some amphibian chain-mail.) Here is a mere sampling of their desperate cries:

"I feel your pain... My poor butterfly bush has gotten much the same treatment."

" First year after I planted some lilies my son mowed over them."

"I lost a low bush cranberry bush to an overly enthusiastic husband once upon a time. It was a bush for heaven's sake!!"

"Richard took out all of my Siberian iris!"


And on, and on, and on, until I wanted to cry tears of nectar for all the poor dead plants. For the love of all that is green and holy, how on earth could you mistake a LOW BUSH CRANBERRY for GRASS? WTF?!!!!

So sisters, it is time for us to unite. Time for us to ply our menfolk with cheap beer and tater chips and yes, even pizza, and while they are nodding off on the couch in front of the football game, (which won't work for Gordon, since he doesn't watch sports... in his case, it would be nodding off in front of the Wii, were such a thing possible, which it isn't, because a Wii is so stimulating that it can give you seizures) we must stomp out to the garage en masse, spirit away the weed whippers, and hire a LAWN CARE PROFESSIONAL! Preferably a female one. And then our poor little flowers (and low bush cranberries) can breathe a sigh of plantly relief and go on to live full, lush, colourful lives without the threat of weekly mutilation.



And yes, dearheart, I love you even more than the day we wed, especially since you don't have a blog and can't tell the world about MY foibles!

SISTERHOOD, UNITE!





18 comments:

  1. What a funny post! Poor Pnat. Poor Gordon. Does he know you've posted the skirty pic??

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  2. Not yet. Check to see if I'm still alive at dinnertime! Hmmm, maybe I should bake him some cookies.

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  3. Anonymous11:14 am

    Chocolate chip oatmeal would be nice.

    g

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  4. Good thing he hasn't discovered the use of propane-powered flame throwers to keep the weeds down...

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  5. Knat, you crack me up. Sister's unite!

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  6. Happy Anniversary! I can tell by the smile on your hubby's face that he is a good sport!! And I posted a photo of Greg in a skirt - I think all my roses would be hacked down immediately! lol!!

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  7. Oh he HAS a propane-powered torch; he just hasn't had a chance to fry anything yet this year. But my boxwood still bears the scars from last year's inferno along the interlock!

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  8. I hope Richard reads this and weeps for my Siberian iris. And yup, I'm one of those women who loves my man who weed whips and mows and whatever...UNITE!

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  9. Anonymous4:51 pm

    OK i suppose that HUNK of MANLINESS only goes so far when it comes to tolerating man-actions. The pic of the decimated flowers in front of the little building is very graphic. :O

    i think the problem is that the weed-whacker is probably a little too much fun to operate. Maybe you could try getting some of those old iron shackles (maybe at one of those farm auctions?) and put them around his bare ankles. The chafing and the sheer weight associated with shuffling around with them attached (especially with an extra heavy chain ..perhaps a ship anchor chain?) should lower the fun level a bit.

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  10. OMG, Dr. Sloth, SHACKLES! An EXCELLENT IDEA! I am laughing so hard I might pee.

    Ronna, you gotta love these hapless, weed whackin' madmen. But I suggest you stop RIchard from getting a propane-powered flamethrower... unless it's already too late.

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  11. Happy anniversary!

    And now you know better than to buy lilies. Next year try something more obvious, like ornamental grasses!

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  12. Happy anniversary! Gotta love a guy who loves to do yardwork, even if it is a little misguided. My DH would rather do dishes than mow the lawn so it's a fair trade off for me. Here's to a happy and healthy year to come, weed-wacker and lily together! lol

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  13. I feel like a fraud, since our anniversary was last month, but thanks for the greetings! :) I can see how you'd by confused, what with the wedding pics and all.

    HWB, I had lots of ornamental grass last year and he didn't bloody well weed whip any of it!!

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  14. Happy Anniversary. And I do hope he got those cookies after those pictures.

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  15. Oh, happy happy Anniversary!! I cannot believe he let you take a photo of him in a skirt. He definitely has his good points and a great sense of humor -- and he cooks too. Alas, if you're going to hire a male garden professional, you may want to check his weed whacking skills before signing on the dotted line. JMHO.

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  16. James, I bought the chocolate chips but haven't made the cookies yet. THey're coming!

    Genny, I will make absolutely sure the weed-whackin' professional is a GURL.

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  17. OMG, Natalie, you are so funny. I'm snickering away at 1:30 am and Jeff is wondering what I'm laughing at.

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  18. But more importantly, Shona, does Jeff have a weed-whipper, and how many perennials has he decapitated???

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Thank you for all your comments, which I love to read!