Inspiration is silly.

As much as it pains me to admit, I’ve neglected my garden the past two years. Some of it was health related (knee surgery, back issues), some due to time constraints (that dumb day job that pays the bills) but if I’m being honest, most of it was due to an overwhelming feeling of feeling overwhelmed.

I’d lost control of the garden.

It won.

Let me be more specific, the weeds won.

And then our furnace petered out one brutally frigid day back in January.

We were fortunate to find someone who could replace it within a day but it came with a stipulation. I had to clear space to allow them to install a new AC unit. For reference, the old unit sat behind the Ninebark on the left side in the pic below.

Without thought, I stepped into my long forgotten and neglected boots (fortunately no mice had taken residence in them), grabbed my trimmer and ascended into the frozen tundra that was the NJ outdoors at that time. I cleared a path like a good boy and the company successfully installed the new unit.

As I surveyed my great work (yes my definition of “great work” had sunken to an all time low) I started dreaming about adding a path to this section of garden that had given me fits over the years. More path meant less space for the aforementioned f’n weeds. Now winter dreaming is easy when it’s too cold to actually do anything outdoors.

But guess what?

I actually did it.

I installed that path.

And that my friends, unearthed a borderline psychotic reaction to get the garden back to its glory. I haven’t stopped working in the garden since April and vow to not stop until I’m satisfied. And since satisfaction is not attainable, I’ll be busting my ass for the foreseeable future.

This included clearing out all of the weeds under my precious River Birch.

Tackling the hellscape that was the garden around my back deck.

Please ignore the different shades of black mulch in the pic above, I’m more ashamed than you’ll ever imagine. Hopefully it is still effective even if it isn’t aesthetically pleasing.

So in conclusion, I’m back.

We’ll see how much I post going forward, but even if I don’t, just know this 54 year old man will continue to garden like a mutha f’er.

Thank you for reading.