![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Vom vs. Rosebush: Rosebush 1, Vom 0.
Aug. 2nd, 2011 10:31 amSo we're having the painters come to do the trim on the places we can't reach. That means that they must be able to, you know, actually reach the trim.
The people who owned the house before us were utterly clueless. Examples include but are not limited to: spilling a bucket of paint on the floor and leaving it there to dry, jerry-rigging their own electrical system in a way that made the electrician scream and leap backwards, hammering a plank of wood on the floor (no, I don't know why), putting bright fish wallpaper boarders on poop brown paint, and planting a black walnut, of all things, six inches from the house's foundation.
Uh, yeah.
So.
They also allowed a Dr Huey rose bush to grow to a height of at least eight feet tall and about four, no six, feet wide. That sucker is HUGE. It's also scraping against the house, which is a major house no-no.
I love roses, don't get me wrong. But I love my house's siding more. I consulted a friend about pruning it, and she said I probably couldn't kill it if I tried, and that Dr Huey was notorious for being, well, not just hardy but indifferent to rain, sleet, hail, sun, and the occasional act of god.
So last night I went out, wearing rose bush gloves (they're more like gauntlets, to be honest) and a chambray shirt to cover my arms, and did my best to prune it.
I am now limping, scratched, covered in bandaids, sore, and grumpy. There's an enormous pile of rose wood that refused to fit into the yard waste bags without poking me in the face, so it's just going to have to be taken away in bundles.
The damn rose: caught my hair, poked through heavy leather gloves to gouge the back of my hand, ow ow ow, bruised my thigh, scratched my scalp, pricked my wrist (through leather AND canvas, the fiend), and generally caused havoc. The clothes I was wearing are a dead loss.
Did I mention that it was 104 out? And that was when it was cooling off.
I staggered back inside to lick my wounds and take a cold bath. Except it's been so hot that we no longer have cold water. It's luke warm, even on pure cold.
But the painters can get to the house. Which is something. I guess.
*wanders off to apply more disinfectant to yet another thorn wound*
The people who owned the house before us were utterly clueless. Examples include but are not limited to: spilling a bucket of paint on the floor and leaving it there to dry, jerry-rigging their own electrical system in a way that made the electrician scream and leap backwards, hammering a plank of wood on the floor (no, I don't know why), putting bright fish wallpaper boarders on poop brown paint, and planting a black walnut, of all things, six inches from the house's foundation.
Uh, yeah.
So.
They also allowed a Dr Huey rose bush to grow to a height of at least eight feet tall and about four, no six, feet wide. That sucker is HUGE. It's also scraping against the house, which is a major house no-no.
I love roses, don't get me wrong. But I love my house's siding more. I consulted a friend about pruning it, and she said I probably couldn't kill it if I tried, and that Dr Huey was notorious for being, well, not just hardy but indifferent to rain, sleet, hail, sun, and the occasional act of god.
So last night I went out, wearing rose bush gloves (they're more like gauntlets, to be honest) and a chambray shirt to cover my arms, and did my best to prune it.
I am now limping, scratched, covered in bandaids, sore, and grumpy. There's an enormous pile of rose wood that refused to fit into the yard waste bags without poking me in the face, so it's just going to have to be taken away in bundles.
The damn rose: caught my hair, poked through heavy leather gloves to gouge the back of my hand, ow ow ow, bruised my thigh, scratched my scalp, pricked my wrist (through leather AND canvas, the fiend), and generally caused havoc. The clothes I was wearing are a dead loss.
Did I mention that it was 104 out? And that was when it was cooling off.
I staggered back inside to lick my wounds and take a cold bath. Except it's been so hot that we no longer have cold water. It's luke warm, even on pure cold.
But the painters can get to the house. Which is something. I guess.
*wanders off to apply more disinfectant to yet another thorn wound*
