'Till' death do us part

Let me just start of by saying that I'm not a huge fan of yard work. My dad has always found it 'therapeutic' to slave for hours and hours in the hot sun, on a weekend. I, on the other hand, do not. It's really hard work! We moved into our home in the Winter of 2006 and I was extremely pregnant by Spring/Summer 2007. Needless to say, the weeding was neglected. Josh is great at keeping up on the mowing, trimming and raking, but doesn't have time to do it all. We have a mature yard and grass seems to be growing in all of the wrong places, and at ridiculous heights (up to 12 inches). I've studied the grass/weeds many times over the last few months. I bought grass killer, which didn't even phase said grass. I knew that pretty much my only option was to dig it all up. My arms have gotten stronger since I've been lugging Mason around, but the idea of back breaking shoveling was almost to much to bear. This is what I was up against.

My dad has hired someone to till his acre of land for the last couple of years, which he feels has been quite worth it. However, when I was at his house on Saturday he was lamenting to me that his tiller hadn't been fired up in 2 years. He decided to till around the perimeter of his land, just to make sure all was well with his tiller 'friend'. He spent an hour or two outside, while Mom, Mas and I hung out inside. He must not have had enough of it, since he came inside and offered to take the tiller up to my house to tackle the front yard. I could hardly resist such a generous offer. Josh came over with the truck and they loaded the tiller onto the flatbed. Dad and I spent the next hour and a half doing much dreaded (and sweaty!) yard work. I watched him as he attacked all the grass and roots and thought of the nightmare he was relieving me of. I followed behind him, loading the grass and weeds into the wheel barrel. All told, I filled that wheel barrel 3 times! I huffed and puffed too. I am no spring chicken. Dad kept saying that he gets more tired than he used to and I just had to laugh to myself. At 65, he has a hundred times more energy than I'll ever have! We discovered 2 large stepping stones that were buried 6 inches down and I successfully helped him load the tiller back onto the flatbed and drive it back to his house! Yeah, I was thinking I was pretty cool. ;)

I was grateful for the work and time that Dad put into helping me make my yard less disgraceful. There's just nothing like 'Daddy/Daughter Time' though, even if it is dirty yard work! I've still got a lot of work cut out for me, but this made it so much better. Thanks, Dad!!!