You know you're getting your money's worth...

Given that I have one month to catch up on two years worth of yard work, I hired the first set of college boys that came knocking on the door looking to do yard work. Today was their first day.

A long, long time ago, I scored four metal poles (cement balls already attached to one end of each pole), two of which I installed here:



It's hard to see, but there's a chain of bells that goes across, and it looks kinda nice. But I have two more poles, and installing the first two pretty much took all the pole-installation I had in me so the other two poles languished in the yard.

Today, I set my college boys to dig me two big holes and install them:



Also a long, long time ago, back when I was at Tektronix, they chopped down all the trees in the area between Bldg 58 and Bldg...55?—Well, I can't remember, that's how long it's been.—to build a Starbucks. Anyhow, there was this particular Poplar branch, it was nicely shaped. I noticed during lunch one day that the chain link fence that went around the building site was unlocked, and there was no yellow caution tape wrapped around the opening.

Well, that must mean that we could go in there then!

I convinced my long suffering coworker to go in there with me to get the Poplar branch.

While we were poking around, four very large men with hard hats came around, "HEY! YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE IN HERE!"

"Oh, sorry," spoken very meekly.

"WHAT DO YOU WANT?!"

"Er, I was thinking that I'd like a branch..."

"OH YEAH? WHICH ONE?"

"Er, that one?" I pointed to the object of my desire.

"WHERE'S YOUR CAR? I CAN BRING IT OUT TO YOUR CAR IF YOU WANT."

How about that!? The world is my oyster and it's all mine but for the asking! And I've had this branch now for even longer than the poles, I think.

I had this idea that the branch can top the poles and make a nice little gate-like thing.

BUT...

It would appear that the branch is just bit short for what I had in mind, and for where I told the boys to plant the poles. And as you can see from the picture, the ground was not exactly level and so we have one tall pole and one short pole.

So now I have to come up with a better idea.

Now I'm finally getting to the Getting-My-Money's-Worth story

After they dug the poles, I set them to dig up some bamboo.

"I hear that's really hard," (That's why I hired you to do it.) "but we're up to the challenge." (Excellent.)

I set them to deal with the bamboo and I went back to the other side of the yard to continue with my stuff.

Not too much after, I heard this big scream, "oh f*ck!" (I think that was what I heard...I was all the way across on the other side.)

Uh oh, somebody chopped off their foot? But the scream did not continue. I sauntered over to check on them. "You guys ok?"

"Yeah, he's just frustrated, it's really hard work."

So that's how you know you're getting your money's worth. And just think, someday, they'll be long out of college and they'll get together and reminisce. "Remember when we had to dig out the bamboo for that crazy lady?"

Here's the bane of their existance: