Tedium Tests

I often think about the strict self discipline required for accomplishing certain tedious tasks.   

While in the midst of such thinking, I'm also tempted to just plain quit and walk away from the job at hand.  After all, it seems like beyond forever before the end of these project will come. Plus, the actual process usually involves a lot of mindless boredom.

Some gritty force within, however, usually keeps me going, and, happily, after so long, there's obvious progress. The mere sight of that progress reminds me this job is all worth the persistent effort. 

Late fall brings out healthy doses of tedium with two major projects:  apples and leaves.  

With apples, it's both the picking and then, later, the endless peeling. 

With my apples this year, the peeling process is especially challenging because the apples are not very big.  In fact, my main tree yielded hundreds of little thumb-sized, grossly deformed apples. 

The rest were okay but not nearly the size than those from last year. 

My neighbor Randy Poelstra told me a while back that the lack of rain in late summer caused this problem, so I'm hoping to rectify that situation next year with a little more watering. 

As I picked apples from the tree for days on end, sorting the rejects into one bucket and those that looked halfway acceptable into another.  

Rejects went to the barn where the horses happily munch them down as juicy dessert with their evening meal.  

The others went into boxes inside the garage.

Even these apples are not the best for peeling, but since I really like lumpy applesauce, I've been motivated several times to don my surgical gloves, grab a knife and spend several hours peeling and quartering enough to make three or four pints of sauce. 

Every time I sample a spoonful of that yummy cold sauce from the refrigerator, I'm determined to keep up the tedium. 

At least during apple peeling, we can set up shop in the living room, surrounded by bowls for the peels and bowls for quartered apples, and watch a little TV.  

Then, it's fun to take the overloaded peel bowl out to the horses.  Like the dogs who race to the yard every time I yell "SQUIRREL," the two horses hear "APPLES" and come galloping to the fence. 

So, the peeling regimen does have a few rewards.

As far as fallen leaves, that's a different story.  There's no bowl of delicious leaves at the end. And, I can't watch television as a distraction.

Up to last weekend, my leaf-collecting tedium involved daily sessions of round after round after round with my lawnmower and its two bags. 

Fill the bags until leaves from the overflowing bags start blowing into your face.  Head for the woods or a pasture, dump the bags and then come back for more and more and more. 

As noted in previous posts, as fast as those leaves would hit the ground, I was picking them up. 

The last day of bagging, however, I sensed right away that I was facing an uphill battle AND there are no hills in my yard. 

The wind was blowing, furiously.  I'd make my rounds filling up bags and dumping, and, upon my return, the same area I where I had just passed over was filling up with new dropping leaves.

The only thing that kept me going that day was knowing that those leaves in the pasture or woods piles were not on the lawn.  

Then, I had to leave (no pun here) for two days, and then it snowed.  

And, then it snowed some more.  

And, while I was gone,  it must have blown a LOT too.  As I mentioned before, we returned to an entire west lawn crop of upright oak leaves, stuck in the snow.  

Bumper crop, in fact.

To the south, lay millions of not-so-impressive, actually pretty ugly poplar leaves. 

The place was a mess.  

My patience was gonna have a new test.  Throughout the past week, I've begrudgingly tolerated the mess, knowing that warmer weather was gonna come and that maybe that snow would melt off and let me use the lawnmower to pick up half a season's worth of falling leaves.

On Thursday, the very day that it was supposed to warm up and maybe rain a bit, it snowed and snowed and snowed.

Patience did wear thin.  The lawnmower bags were disassembled and put away for their winter's rest, and I pretty much threw up my hands, figuring spring-time raking of frozen leaves was not gonna be fun.

Well, after all the snow from Thursday, it warmed up and some has even melted---certainly not all but enough to inspire me to go out there and give it my best with my rake and our wood sled. 

It's a slow process, separating leaves from snow and ice, but it's moving along, and by day's end yesterday I could see significant progress.  

Still, at least 75 percent of the lawn is covered with leaves and snow, but my rationale is that after that effort,  25 percent will not have to be raked in the spring. 

I'll keep working over the next two days to even the percentage, and, it's for sure, I'll get a lot of thinking done as I move forward. 

Plus, that cold, late autumn air, and help from dogs with balls needing to be flung around makes the job halfway enjoyable. 

So, tedium is okay in some cases.  

At the end of my leaf-raking days, I may not be able to sit back and savor the flavor of a bowl of oak and poplar leaves, but the ongoing task involves several days of good workouts, along with oodles of Fitbit steps  and that's a good thing.   

Plus, Mother Nature's ever-changing vistas around our place are exhilarating AND the lawn is looking a whole lot better. 

Happy Monday.