Landscaping

What is left of my rose trellis and climbing rose from h--l.

This is landscaping in the broadest sense of the word.  Since tomorrow is garbage day I went out to the backyard to gather up all the fallen branches from the week or so of windy weather we've been having.  Surprise!  The trellis had broken off and it and most of the climbing rose that was on it was collapsed on the deck in front of my back door.  Grrrr, it's 31° in my backyard.  I don't want to go out there, it's cold!  Being a grown-up, I slammed the back door and said all those words I don't say in front of my grandgirls.  However being really irritated calls up quite a lot of energy that's not going to any good use so I put my woolly coat, woolly hat, leather gloves, woolly socks, and rubber shoes and went out and retrieved the rose pruners and my giant geared lopper from the garage.  I stopped to stare at the thermometer, yup, 31°.   What happened to our semi-sunny 45° degree weather? Oh well, it's still garbage eve, much celebrated in my household, and the 90 gallon monster I get from the city is only got about 10" of trash in it.  Go Grandma.

This rose and I have a long history, it was here when I moved in 11 years ago and I spent 6 or 7 years trying to kill it.  It was raggedy and has the nastiest thorns.  I chopped it down.  I  dug it up, many times, following roots and dragging them out.  I poisoned it, a move I try usually to avoid but cutting and digging wasn't doing it.  So one year, bowing to a power greater than mine a trellis was erected to let it grow on.  If it wouldn't disappear I would use it to shade the deck which gets hotter than a frying pan in the summer.  The first year it seemed happy, growing up to the first rail, but the next year it sent out long branches and I interwove them through the trellis to spread the shade as far as I could.  The third year it filled in nicely and gave out many red blossoms.  The next year it didn't want to blossom and in the following winter 2/3 of it died like everything else shrub-like in the yard died in a prolonged deep freeze that came after an untimely warm spell in February.  And it never seems to have recovered, but it won't die.

So there I am, I chopping and pruning, muttering dark thoughts about being out in such weather snipping away and then it started to rain a little, and the rain froze, making the deck slick.  Little tiny particles of sleet or miniature snow got stuck in my hair and eyelashes.  More colorful language emerged, quietly, there's small children next door.  And then I started laughing.  This thing needed cutting long ago, the trellis wasn't strong enough anyway for the kinds of wind and gusts we have here, and fate made sure I got out there to do it and conveniently there was enough room in the trash for the remains.  So much for being the mistress of my own ship.  At least it got done before dark.