Neat & Ugly

The hedge in front of the house I live in takes up a few work sessions each summer, just keeping it from swallowing the house. Today I made a point of halving its volume and reducing its height by about a third. the result is not much to look at but to me it constitutes progress. It's uneven and wonky-looking because I had to cut out some of the thickest trunks. It will fill in again quickly though.

The neighbor has just recently paid a guy to replace the post of the shared railing that goes down the steps (white, visible through the hedge), which needed doing around ten years ago. My very eccentric housemate-cum-landlord never so much as acknowledged that it was happening, but then part of the molding at the front of the porch roof fell off for being rotted, and I determined to replace it, along with some other repairs of that sort. The bush was making it impossible to get up to that space, so I had to carve it down first.

It's what I've been doing in lieu of rent. I look after the house, the trash, and the cat boxes, but I pay no money. This is how a man can turn into a sort-of ghost when the economy fails, he gets older and lives alone. On the brighter side, work is coming to me at a pace and I feel it getting easier to do than it has been in recent years --I am well.

I hope the inside story of this uninteresting scene justifies the blip.