My unique skill at losing something right in the garden right where I am

Days roll by, just like today, this morning we learned a local friend Bob Koljard passed away at home a day ago, he was 88, had been ill, wheel chair confined, and not well enough to do much for several years so it is for the best, they say and I  agree. Yet, Jan, now a widow  has been Bob's caretaker all these years, they were married  almost 60 years and when Jan and I talked I knew she was weary.  I can relate because here, Jerry  cannot do what he used to do and so I have been shouldering and soldiering on.  Jan and I said to each other that it is very confining and not the life we ever imagined but the life we now have.  She said that she too is so doggone busy through the day  that by evening she  falls into bed only to begin again the next day.  At times it feels like the hamster treadmill, the other day I said life had become Ground Hog Day after day.  Yet I cannot complain, things are better, just not beck to full gear and we cannot travel.  So we are occupied at home.  Jerry has been going to pulmonary rehab 3 x a week and is significantly stronger, yet still needs his supplemental oxygen 24/7.   

Professional window washers

Fortunately we have someone hired to mow the lawns and this week window washers came to do the inside and outside, but there is just an awful lot to do. We are blessedly financially able to pay for services, it  is often a bigger task to find someone to do the work in this area where everyone is working, servvices are few and busy and often not taking on new customers.   Besides Jerry used to do so much, he has always been handy, a real Mr Fix It and often preferred to do things himself because he is very particular and wants it done right. But with his recovery  no longer is he doing so much. I now not only cook dinner I have cleanup afterward, Jerry used to do that and once in a great while he  does some, at least cleans off the stove, but I used to sit down after dinner, check my Facebook, catch up and finish my glass of wine.  No more, I am often on clean up duty.  Sometimes I have an extra glass of wine as I finish up.  My comfort beverage.  So after  calling Jan to  express our condolences and offer what help we might be able to give her, I proceeded on my day,  an outside chore. 

 

Far right side of the garden  where the volunteer
maple tree thrives

Yesterday I spent a few hours down in the garden weeding, clipping and spraying Round Up.  Just as recently as last year I would not have used the Round Up but  kept on pulling weeds, this year, I try to make things a little easier for myself. I have used several gallons already this year in addition to my old school pulling methods, but spraying Round Up is much easier on my back and no  stooping, etc.  Lazier maybe, more expensive, certainly, but yet anything that makes it easier I am all for these days.   

Big pile of clippings debris, branches, weeds, limbs, etc

 I kept taking my sunglasses off and on from shady areas to sunny areas..  Finally I put them in my shorts pocket because mostly I was in the shade and did not need them.  Sometime  in this last  span of  maybe 40 minutes they slipped out of my pocket.  I noticed as I headed up to the house that they were not in my pocket.  I looked around under the  shrubs and trees and perimeter where I had been last.  I know I had them in my pocket when I finished in the garden and did perimeter and bank work.  The sunglasses were  Vuarnets, over 25 years old, I had bought them in CA from my eye doctor to use when we would go  skiing up to the mountains.  I  use them primarily around here working outside because our sun is very intense, sometimes I wear them on my walks.  

One of my garden whirly gigs

Reluctantly I came up the  back hill to the house sans glasses.  I decided they must have fallen out onto the pile of lawn debris, clippings and  such that I have accumulated and that is waiting foir the landscaper service to remove when they come to do summer pruning anytime now.  The pile is massive, over  5 foot high and  3 feet wide and  yet I keep adding to it.  I had been pulling some weeds near the pile so  thought perhaps I could spot  my sunglasses there, but no luck.  So I shrugged reluctantly and turned it over to St Anthony, my go to saint  who has returned multitudes of misplace and lost things to me over my life.  Today I returned to the debris pile with more briar cuttings and my handly old pitchfork another tool from CA gardening days.  I sifted again through the  outer area and  removed the top from yesterday, the pile is so dense that they could not have fallen deep into it, so I thought for sure I could find them.  Well I was wrong, I did another perimeter and  full garden patrol and  had to admit defeat.  I guess it is time to say good bye to my favorite blue sunglasses.  I had google d last night and see they are not at all cheap in price to replace, so likely I will now  switch to using my old Ray Bans and  the Bucci's.  But I am going to miss the Vuarnets.  At least I did get a chuckle from Facebook over this escapade.  I posted about  my loss and  as soon as I began to scan for updates from friends and family I had an ad from Vuarnet, touting that they have made the best sunglasses from 1957.  Who says FB doesn't pay attention to posts?.  Yet it is still my preference for communication because it is very easy and all at once, no cumbersome logging in, writing emails, etc...I simply cannot understand people who refuse to use it. I figure they are not into social media either cannot figure it out, possibly are limited in their technology skills and/or are afraid, afraid of what?  It is as safe as a person makes it.  But this message will never change their minds and so they go along without knowing what I'm up to and since I am in touch via FB with several hundred others, I  do not care. Within a second of that FB post, I heard from a cousin in PA who had been having a bum luck day yesterday too.  And later on from another friend in  northern PA who had also  lost something yesterday,  We decided that the air waves were all in cahoots.