I Hate Green Briars!

[hoodat]

Look on the bright side. The tender tips are delicious in a salad. Italians plant them in their garden but are careful to keep them sheared back to encourage good tip growth. That way they don't get away and take over the garden.

 

[baymule]

Hi @hoodat ! I do in fact, find them tasty. I snap off the tips and eat them as snacks when I am outside. I have gathered them and saute'd them in butter and garlic. They taste like asparagus. Good to see you here, hope you come back more often.

Since my last post, we have gone chopping briars twice more and hauled out 4 more loads of briars, branches and fallen dead tree debris. It rained several weeks ago and we hustled outside the next morning and burned our pile. It is so hot now, that it is hard to find the enthusiasm to do much of anything outside.

 

[ninnymary]

Bay, are you half way done with them?

Mary

 

[baymule]

This past week, we chopped and hauled 2 more loads of green briars. Will it ever end? Since my husband was scheduled for shoulder replacement surgery on Monday the 26th, I told him we'd do whatever he wanted to do. He really wants the front cleaned up, so we worked 2 mornings on the briars. We hauled two more loads out and probably have another load on the ground. We were soaked with sweat in no time, it may be September, but it is still HOT!

DH had a Dr appointment week before last for a checkup, found a UTI and got a prescription. Had pre-op appointment on Monday the 19th, they called on Wednesday and said the antibiotic he was taking for the UTI wasn't working and called him in another prescription. Went back to Dr on Friday morning, concerned about UTI. By Friday night, DH couldn't even urinate, was crying with pain, went to ER. We were told a 2 hour wait, but fortunately the triage nurse saw the agony DH was in and called a nurse and basically told her to help my husband NOW. They found him an exam table, it was all they had, ER was full, it was Friday night and the place was a zoo. The RN didn't waffle around, didn't wait on Dr's orders, she immediately put a catheter in and urine poured out. DH almost squeezed my arm off while this was going on, but felt immediate relief. We were so grateful.

Turns out, he has an antibiotic resistant bacterial infection and they admitted him to the hospital and did an IV antibiotic on him. He might get to come home tomorrow and is doing much better. Shoulder surgery has been cancelled for now. Gheesh. Poor guy. Now that it is under control and he is much better, I finally told him how dangerous antibiotic resistant bacteria is. Needless to say, surgery has been cancelled for now, can't operate until we know this is gone, gone, gone.

And he is already planning on taking advantage of this lull before he is incapacitated by surgery, and getting back to slashing and pulling green briar vines......

 

[Nyboy]

Poor man had catheter once, understand his pain.

 

[baymule]

Today we cut and pulled more vines. My husband trimmed trees and out neighbor Robert came over and cut several dead trees up that were on the ground. He also cut a couple of dead trees down. We crammed all the vines we could in the back of DH's Kawasaki Mule. It was packed over the top of the Mule. We dragged out vines and left them for the sheep to eat the leaves off of. They heard the chainsaw going and came running. How do you call a sheep for dinner? Crank the chainsaw! We have enough vines and cut up dead trees on the ground to last us a couple of days in clean up.

 

[baymule]

We are still working on our shrinking briar patch. Today we hauled out 4 loads to the burn pile. It is amazing to see the difference. There is dappled sunlight on the forest floor, probably haven't had sunlight in there for years. There are still some clumps of briars left, but we will get them knocked out.

 

[so lucky]

@baymule, how is your DH doing? Are you making sure he gets plenty of pro-and pre-biotics to replace what the medicine may have wiped out?
What a scary thing for you and him to go through!
I think he needs to send that nurse a flower. Nurses are the best!

 

[baymule]

@baymule, how is your DH doing? Are you making sure he gets plenty of pro-and pre-biotics to replace what the medicine may have wiped out?
What a scary thing for you and him to go through!
I think he needs to send that nurse a flower. Nurses are the best!

He is doing much better and we are so glad! We started him on some home made sauerkraut that @Devonviolet brought him. That stuff is so good!

 

[catjac1975]

Today we have been utterly worthless. It has been a rainy day, so between that and exhaustion, we have laid up like a fat lizard on a rock in the sunshine. Only we've been in recliners under the AC. We've been going hard for two weeks and today was collapse day. I finally dragged myself outside at 3:00 and fed all the animals and crawled back in my recliner.

My indoor cleaning days and project days are reserved for rainy days. It has rained about 8 times since May here. We had 3 days of rain this week after all of that drought..and I got a cold. So I've had a few lazy days myself. Not too much done on the inside except a bit of daylily seed organization.I sure needs some TLC. I trade daylilies for house cleaning so I have a few cleaning owed to me. Yay.