Consuming Shrubbery

    I was so looking forward to a beautiful day working on building the new garden wall when walking out the front door and turning to walk down the wood walk I managed to trip over some of my husband’s strewn about hardware supplies, including a ten foot long piece of PVC pipe for our new garden sprinkler system, which I was attempting to kick out of the way and I somehow managed to gracefully (or not so, as I actually have no memory of the fly time) flipped myself so my shin firmly and repeatedly slammed onto the step.  Somehow I don’t recall the bouncing.  My behind landed in the shrubbery with my feet elevated about to be consumed by branches.  At least, they wouldn’t give my feet back upon request.  The remainder of my left side must have also bounced off the corner of the elevated wood walk and into the waiting undergrowth.  My head was on the ground far lower down the hill than the rest of my body and I simply could not get out of the predicament.

    I imagined I’d win $10,000 on one of those video shows had someone taped me, though I won’t be reenacting my adventure; not intentionally.  The shrubbery pressed me snuggly against the wooden walk structure, in their mind to protect me no doubt.  My feet were being held hostage in the uphill branches of another shrub, who I am quite sure believed it too was just doing its duty.  I was wedged in.  I could hear in my mind exactly what my eldest son would (and later did) say, “This is exactly why I’ve told you that you should keep a cell phone on you at all times.”  I seriously think that boy is turning into his parents with phrases like that.

    I managed to get one arm entirely free, and the second arm could help to prop up my head to pitch in to asess the situation. I was basically not getting out by myself unless I spent a great deal of time working my way through the fifteen year old bushes, which did not appeal. Partially as they were a gift from my deceased father and partially because it would hurt like the Dickens’s to go through them!  My dearest husband, who as you recall, left said items on the walk that tricked me into the catastrophe, was on the tractor not 100 feet away, but he would never see me, wedged down snuggly like a bunny.  The difference being the rabbit is sized to fit!  My husband certainly would never hear a call for help over the boisterous engine noise either, so I needed an alternate plan.

    That infamous ten foot long piece of PVC pipe that caused the ruckus in the very beginning seemed to be my only hope to catch his eye.  I could wave it about like a flag.  Trust me.  From my position, waving anything was not an easy thing to do, but I did my best.  Of course at first, the moment the pipe went in the air, he turned the tractor away from my direction and I had to wait until he came back around.  When he did turn around he noticed me moving the pipe and just went about his business. He later told me his first thought at the time was, “What’s she doing with my stuff now?”  Then he caught on, came to my rescue and with quite a bit of effort he finally liberated me from the consuming shrubbery.  My Knight in Shining Armor.  (Who’s toy’s put me in the predicament requiring being rescued in the first place!)

So I did NOT get to work in the garden after all. 

Instead I sat with ice packs and iced tea resting for the remainder of the day.