well that'll teach me.....

...maybe.
Or maybe not.
I'm kind of a slow learner sometimes.

Last Monday I was walking along the path by the rose bushes, thinking that maybe I'd buy a few red cordylines and plant them in some gaps along the path edge.
I noticed a clump of leaves similar to clover, but these are the weeds that flower with tiny yellow flowers, then develop those brown burr prickles along the stems.
So I bent over and pulled one out, by lifting the trailing stems until I reached the central stem, then yanking close to the ground.
The weed came out really easily, and I remembered the rain we'd had two days before which had softened the soil.
Me being the finicky-about-prickle-free-grass person that I am, I dropped to my knees and spent the next 40 minutes pulling out these burrs.
Then I went back inside, thinking I'd get back out there after work the next day.

Ha Ha .
And Ha Ha again!

It's been several years since I'd crawled around on my knees and pulled weeds from grass, and when I woke up Tuesday morning and tried to get out of bed, I was really surprised to find that my hips and knees didn't want to work.
A hot shower seemed to help and things were feeling okay while I got my breakfast ready and sat down to eat.
Getting up from the chair was a whole other story. My thigh muscles had seized up!
Not entirely, I was able to walk, but boy oh boy did it hurt!!

I knew that keeping moving was the best cure for my self-inflicted hurts, so I went to work and hoped that the small amount of stepping I do at the checkout would be a help.
Really, it didn't help all that much, but I'm thinking it was better than lying down and getting really stiff.

Wednesday, and Thursday,  I went to work smelling strongly of Deep Heat, which I hadn't wanted to do, but it helped more than just keeping moving.

Today the thigh muscles are back to normal, and the grass has been cut, so I can't see any more weeds until they grow a bit, so I won't be doing any crawling around for a while.
When I do, I'll be limiting the amount of time I spend on my aging knees, maybe just ten minutes at a time.

Comments

  1. Live and learn eh?

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  2. It's amazing how intensive a workout gardening can be. I've had that same experience, and remember thinking, it's just *gardening*! One thing that helped my knees - those little foam mats you can buy for kneeling on. They really give just the right amount of support to make my knees not angry after weeding.

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  3. Getting old is not for the feint of heart. Unless we've done something terminally stupid, we go right into work!

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  4. I went jogging one day, for several kilometres. I could barely move the next day. Too much is bad.

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  5. I so relate to this. Just a little bit more... And then your muscles tell you that it should have been a whole lot less.

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  6. You're too active, the sort to stop people in the street and adjust their clothes for them.

    Cut it out!

    You need SEDATING!!!

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  7. I did almost the same not long ago - that is, I was collecting shells on the beach, pipis, for eating - took at least an hour. Not the same, but the principle is the same. Head down.

    The next day I was so surprised to find that it was the muscles in my bum that hurt. You could have fooled me - my bum does not look as if it has a single muscle in it! Could hardly walk for days!

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  8. Delores; living, but not learning much.

    Amanda; I found those little foam mats to be annoying, because the weeds were quickly out of reach, so I had to keep getting up to move the mat. I'll probably cut them into knee size circles and tie them on instead.

    Joanne; I forget that the muscles haven't done things for a while and just get stuck into things.

    Andrew; I never jog, although I have sprinted a few metres to get a bus, then spent the whole trip waiting for my heart to stop pounding.

    EC; it was only 40 minutes and I didn't notice any stiffness at all until next morning. Then I wished I'd never noticed the weeds.

    Toni; thank god for extra strength deep heat.

    R.H. sedating? No. no no no.

    Signe; I hope the pipis were worth it. There's nothing worse than an aching bum. I get it from the hard, uncomfortable bus seats every day. They're just not designed for short people.

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  9. Funny that I read you did that as I sit here nursing a sore head and shoulders after helping the grandson dig out a Hills Hoist and dig a new hole to move it. It's been a long time since I've used a crow bar and post hole digger...ouch!
    Maybe we'll both learn from this..... Nah!

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  10. Why can't they make deep heat smell nicer? It just reminds me of blokey sport change rooms, ugh.

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  11. do what I do... full strength roundup.

    Gardens are overrated.

    x

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  12. Tempo; we forget that we're no longer used to such intensive labour and just go for it.

    Fenstar de Luxe; I don't mind the smell of deep heat, it's menthol and I've always liked peppermint.

    kelley; it's a communal garden with lots of birds, lizards and cats owned by other teants, roundup could harm them. It's just a few lawn weeds and I've always viewed pulling them by hand as therapeutic. Communing with nature, grounding myself, taking time to calm down.

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