i rotor tilled the garden again and resprayed the weeds. i sprayed the weeds on his driveway too since the tank still felt half full. or fully full. it feels full even after it’s empty. he’s got a new weed spraying device, a backpack water tank with a hand crank on the left and a sprayer on the right. it’s heavy. and he fills it right up, too. if i say we don’t need that much he just shrugs and keeps filling. he says he can’t get it on his shoulders even while it’s empty so he’s never worn it and i’m fairly sure he bought it knowing that i would be its mule. which i don’t really mind. it does save going back and forth mixing up more spray. not that he measures out the correct dosage of weed killer or anything, he just pours a bunch into the tank and says that’ll do. uh, yeah. i guess it probably will. i mean, it at least appears that i haven’t killed every plant in a 3km radius. yet.
he called on saturday evening to remind me what time the rugby was on. we made plans to do an oil change on the rotor tiller the next day and sow some seeds. the next morning he calls and says he’s changed the oil but since it’s cold and cloudy we’ll do the rest some other day. the forecast was for the weather to clear and it did but i left it at that since i’m pretty sure he’d just exhausted himself doing an oil change. he called again yesterday morning to say the weather was now perfect.
i broke his rake a while back. i broke it again after he fixed it, too. to be fair though, the first time i broke it the handle was already broken but duct taped back together. the second time i broke it was after he fixed it again, but he fixed by replacing the handle with a length of bamboo. he claimed the problem was that i rake too violently so i agreed to disagree with that and just left my rake up there hanging on the side of the pig pen with the other tools. when i finished tilling yesterday he went looking for his rake to fix it yet again and i told him i’d left mine there. then i asked him what he needed the rake for? oh, nothing. you know, it’s good to have a rake. yeah? yeah, i suppose it is. before i left i figured he wanted the rake so he could sneak out there and surprise me by sowing some seeds himself. going by his other comments i think he just wants to feel like he’s helping. or participating. before we left i told him the weather was going to be average all week so i’d come back next weekend and we’ll sow the seeds he’s got, then. i’m not sure if he got it but he joked that i might have to wheel him out in a wheel chair with a megaphone so he can shout instructions. his legs have started getting sore if he stands for longer than 5 minutes. so next weekend i will actually fucking get a chair and sit him out there. the instructions i’ll ignore.
last week i had some migraines. i also put the citrus fertilizer and mulch around the two lemons and one lime tree. and tried not water them. we’ve had enough rain so they didn’t need it. too much rain or manual watering and the leaves drop off. not enough and they’ll wilt, then drop off. but i wanted to wash some of the fertilizer in so eventually i watered them. the next day a bunch of leaves fell off. they’re such fussy plants but i don’t see just one lemon as too much to ask for. i also put some seaweed fertilizer on that one little patch of lawn than refuses to grow grass but will sprout clover. and now a bunch more clover has sprouted. this probably explains the migraines.
last thursday the old bugger called and asked if i’d help him with something. so i went up and visited. he’d had a friend borrow his trailer, a scaffolding plank and two ladders. but the friend had left this gear on the trailer when he dropped it off and it needed putting away. when i got there he told me he’d had a bad couple of days with his heart. so we talked about that for a while. then i went to grab the scaffolding plank to put it away and he tried to pick up the other end to help. after just telling me he can barely stay standing. dude, wait, what the fuck are you doing? then he set it down.
shortly after that while we were inspecting the garden he had a call from the cardiologist office. they’re making up the list for valve replacement surgeries. if he doesn’t get his by the 15th of october then it’ll be sometime in november. if he makes it to november. he told them this, along with how he’d felt much worse over the past week. they told him to book an urgent appointment with his doctor to give him a check over. which he did. this was about 11:15am. the appointment was for 12pm. about as long as it takes to drive into town. he didn’t feel like he could drive himself so i took him in for his appointment. i didn’t have my glasses for driving and apparently this was hilarious. it wasn’t. he is the worst back seat driver in the world. also, he’s never lived in timaru so when i took a shortcut behind pak n’ save to get to wai-iti road faster he was lost. then stoked. ah, this is a faster way to get to his doctor’s office. he had his check up. he’s getting poor blood circulation to his legs. we went back to temuka where his chemist is to get his prescription filled. we had a coffee while waiting. in the cafe he had a call from a friend, they’d sold a little mobile coffee station trailer to someone in timaru and they’d stopped paying for it. so back into town we went, on a wild goose chase. long story short, we found our goose’s brother. at the first place we looked. and thought it was the wrong address and eventually came back to. we probably make for a pretty average and not at all intimidating detective agency.
my bones were aching yesterday evening after weed spraying and tilling and still are so i probably don’t need to check my calendar to know i have an infusion next tuesday.
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