The Chore That Never Ended

I know I could tell you all about the horrors of the chores of childhood such as cleaning the base-boards of the walls with a toothbrush, or picking raspberries off of their vines while getting mercilessly scratched by the tiny thorns so my mother could turn the raspberries into yummy jam, but those are honestly not the chores I dreaded the most!!

The chore I dreaded the most was weeding the retaining wall in our backyard in Antioch! And I dreaded dragging my four children into the never-ending job, but I so needed your help. It was not a one person job! Every year the weeds would come back in full force. Every year Dad and I would talk about doing something with that retaining wall so we wouldn't have to worry about it any more and every year, somehow, nothing would get done.

The weeds seemed to grow stronger and multiply each year. I had many a little talk with Adam under my breath that maybe being sent out of the Garden of Eden to "till the land" was not such a great idea (but I knew otherwise.)

Not only were the weeds the problem, the Antioch dirt or clay, I should say, made it even worse. The clay was so hard you couldn't weed unless the ground was wet, but once it was wet, it stuck to your shoes, so by the time you were done weeding you stood six to eight inches taller!! Then you had to wait for the mud to dry and spend another hour with the kitchen knife scraping all the lovely Antioch dirt off of your shoes. Yep, I hated that job!!

I hereby apologize profusely to my four cohorts for making them suffer along with me.

Love, Mom