I’m writing this on Sunday night so I hope that by the time this goes live on Monday morning, I will be feeling a lot better. Yesterday was a rough day. I felt feverish and chills all day. Every muscles in my body was screaming to stay put while knees complained every time I got up from the couch to get a drink while my back threatened to turn me into a shrimp if I moved.

I wasn’t sick, according to a thermometer I stuck beneath my tongue. Maybe it was the weather? It was raining from the wee hours of the morning to almost sunset and considering this is Utah, it was a rare treat, especially it meant my depleted rain barrels were getting a refill. I even had to force myself out into the rain to transfer the water from the overflowing barrel into four 5.3 gallons (20 liters) storage containers. I know, not a good idea but since drought has been foreseen for this summer, I must collect what I can from the sky.

Perhaps me feeling sick was a sign of my body reaching a breaking point. Maybe it’s trying to tell me, “You’re not as young as you used to be.”

To be honest, though, I don’t think my aches came from gardening. It came from the never-ending list of yard chores, which is nowhere near as fun as gardening. I can’t tell you how many 5-gallon buckets of dandelions, bind weeds, broadleaf weeds, and crab grass I have pulled in the last 2 weeks. Every night, I inspect my clean lawn for weeds and almost every night, I get a bucket full of weeds.

Meanwhile, I’ve done nothing in the garden for two weeks. No transplanting, just water once a week and harvest.

Where did all the weeds come from?

My sideyard and backyard neighbors, of course, who decided to not mow their lawn this spring, at least not until their lawns are meadows of dandelions and weeds. Each time the wind blows and those puff balls full of weed seed flies in my direction, my eyes would get watery and I would sneeze like crazy.

Over the weekend, my sideyard neighbor finally mowed, no, weed-whacked his lawn but he only did it on the border between my house and his. What about the other dandelion weeds? I wanted to ask. At the beginning this neighbor felt nice and friendly but then, he brought home two dogs who would try to run down my fence each time I approach my asparagus bed. I shouldn’t be afraid of these dogs but I am. I’m afraid that one day, they will destroy my fence and trample my garden because they are humongous and unpredictable.

Anyway, where was I going with this?

Ah, yes, I have been pulling weeds nonstop not only the ones on my lawn but also along the back fence, which I’ve densely planted lots of things in soil that I replaced last autumn. You can see my yard is, too, a mess, especially after my mom paid someone to chop off the tree last month, but it’s the kind of mess that’s contained. When the weather calms and warms, all those frost clothes will be folded and put away.

So, perhaps, I’ve overdone it but who will do it if I don’t? My mom? She already said she won’t pull weeds. She will just spray toxic pesticide on my lawn, which will continued to be ruined in years to come. She’s already ignored me once when she waited until I was in the office to spray the rocks, thankfully, nothing other than the oxalis got killed.

No, absolutely no sprays on my lawn. I have big plans to revive this lawn for something else.