Getting humbled

So, because of my shoulder surgery I have been sidelined from doing the home gardening.  I have always done the grass and bushes at our various homes.

 When I was in high school I had a burgeoning lawn service that I ran for a select group of clients who brought me more business by word of mouth.   I also cut the home grass, attacked the grass and honeysuckle vines on the hill behind the family abode with a sickle, raked the enormous amounts of leaves that the oak and maple trees dropped in the fall and generally made myself useful outside of the house.

I couldn't even escape grass duty when I went off to the Army.  When the Grouch family moved into government housing in Germany I volunteered (because no one else would do it) to cut the grass around our apartment building.

Here at Grouch estate there are slopes around the house to weed-whack, grass to cut and trim and trees to trim too.  I've done it for 30 years here in sunny SoCal.

So anyway, no grass cutting and trimming for me due to my surgery.  Young Son and the Missus have stepped up to cut the grass but they aren't checked out on the weed-whacker so the slopes were getting unruly. 

We're putting the house on the market so I had to sub the work out.  Oliver the gardener showed up  this past Friday when it was literally 117F.  He labored for at least 4 hours and when he was done everything was dress-right-dress, cut, trimmed, edged, and weeded.  I have never in my life done such precise work.  And he raked everything up, filling both of our giant green waste barrels. 

I supplied him with water and the Missus handed over an ice cold Pepsi while he worked.  The heat bothered him not at all.

I am amazed and humbled at the extent of his work and I realize now I have been a gardener poser all of my life.  This seems to be something best left to the professionals.

At least until I get to Grouch estate east and I get to buy and use a riding lawn mower!