Since we didn't get it down until after the weeds had peeked out of the ground I had to change my approach. I discovered most large weeds would come up if I used a shovel to pop the roots under the ground and then I could pull the weed out without damaging the grass.
Last week, I was on the phone with one of my sisters who had just spent the day weeding her yard. I thought to myself, "I can conquer these weeds right now." I headed out to the front yard with my gloves and a shovel and Mario and Joseph in tow. (Andrea was in bed with pneumonia).
We dug and pulled until my fingers ached. At some point I began to get frustrated and I called the weeds all sorts of things like, "dratted weeds" and "dastardly weeds" and "dang dilapidated weeds." A relatively unimportant point to make about the weeding, but I was trying to stick to non-swear words for the weeds. The roots ran deep and the leaves were all tangled. Some were so bad I had to squat down to get all of my leg strength to pull them out.
Mario took one of these silent squatting moments to correct my colorful country substitute language and said that I should just call them "hardy perennials." To this suggestion I gave a great laugh that was mingled with a scoff and reminded my darling man that the scriptures called them noxious weeds and said they were here to torment me. In my logic, if they are here to torment me, then I am allowed to give them every hint of where I think they should go and how fast I want them there! Mario just sighed and shrugged his shoulders; and I, without an ounce of shame, continued muttering my abuse to the "hardy perennials."
At some point Mario went back in the house and Joseph and I were trying to get some more weeds pulled. I was still on the phone with my sister while trying to pull/pop weeds, which caused some bit of amusement to our neighbors I am sure. I had the phone tucked under my ear and the shovel in my hands while stepping on the shovel and trying to pop weeds. At the same time I was trying to give Joseph directions about which ones were loose. Why I didn't just hang up the phone I will never know. I guess it was literally glued to my head. Wow, why didn't I hang it up! Haha! I just can't get enough of talking to my sister I guess.
Joseph made only one big mistake during our de-hardy perennialling (de-weeding). He wore sandals. He soon regretted this as dirt kept spilling onto his toes from the roots. Every time a huge glob of dusty, bug-filled dirt, touched his toes he would squeal and grab me for balance and he did a little dance trying to shake everything off.
I never really had warning before this would happen. I would be innocently talking to my sister, he would scream and grab me, and I would scream. One of the reasons I screamed is because Joseph kept grabbing me with the muddy weed still in his hand to balance himself. The consequence was that he dumped a whole mess of dirt down the back and front of my shirt. Yuck!!!!! The worst thing he did occurred when the biggest lump dumped onto his foot. He reached for me again to help balance himself and instead of dumping mud down my shirt he began falling backward and lifted my shirt up for the whole neighborhood to see. "Great!" thought I, "As if this wasn't already a spectacle!" :)
I had reached my breaking point and decided that Joseph needed to go to bed, however well-intentioned he was. This is just another example of the lesson we keep learning. You must have the right equipment for the right job! :) For example, tennis shoes instead of sandals and a thicker shirt tucked in cause you never know!
We have since weeded half of the front bed of flowers and put in new plants. It was worth the work and the sweat to have at least half a decent front yard.
picture taken from: http://stmedia.startribune.com/images/630*420/5gard0622.jpg
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