WITH DEFENCES DOWN

After the week I've been having thus far, I had to don my most feminine outfit today, just to fight this overwhelming feeling that I'm slowly but surely, turning into a dude.

See, I love growing stuff, yet my body was definitely not designed for the sort of manual labour required to maintain a garden, and right now I'm contending with a garden that is way beyond my capabilities, but being the most able bodied person around, this has fallen to my lot. 

Naturally, when the neighbour - a strong and handy man - asked if I could switch off the electrical fence so he could trim some overhanging trees and foliage, I was only too eager. What joy then, when on top of it he suggested not just trimming the 'offenders' but clearing a whole pathway along the fence on my side, to keep the electric fence accessible and unencumbered.

So about two weeks ago he set about felling two Mulberry trees that had taken root in a storage passage, dangerously close to the garage and the fence. I assisted him where I could, and though hauling felled branches was labour intensive, it was nothing compared to his part.

At the time there was still a whole bamboo plantation obscuring the rest of the way, but he suggested returning another day to make a path through that too. In the meantime, the street cats made a tunnel into it and turned it into an informal settlement. 

Then last week he told me that since he's going away for a bit on holiday, it would be best if he comes and clears the pathway on Monday morning. It was less than ideal, but naturally I agreed and put all my plans on hold, to assist him as before - after all, he'd be doing us a huge favour.

Monday happen to be a sweltering hot day, and though we got into clearing it early, it turned out to be anything but a walk in the park. Turns out, the previous time it was cleared, the bamboo sticks that were cut down, were left there in piles, and the new growth had now become entangled with the dead sticks.

In the end, the actual new growth was a fraction of the job, but it was here where things soured early on. 

With careless zeal, he cut into the sticks blindly and in the process, cut the electric fence's wires clean off. He felt visibly terrible for it, so I tried to put him at ease - but I instantly knew that he had just caused me a real issue, one I'd inevitably be responsible for fixing too.

So we were already off to a bad start, and I would say about seventy percent of the process was just wrestling and dragging dead sticks from the bed of leave mulch and new growth, and stacking them sky high in the driveway, like a funeral pyre.

Three hours later, sunburned and dehydrated, but finally getting closer to soil level, the dead sticks started smelling like a pond, with actual mushrooms growing on the decaying wood, and this goo smeared all over my exposed, and already nicked and scratched arms in the process.

It got sad after that too, as I watched him cut down branches with existing weaver nests on them... the birds were not happy with us, and made no secret of it either, so I double checked the nests for eggs or nestlings, but fortunately saw none.

Yea, I was not having a fun morning, and I guess neither was he - but I did my best to keep both our spirits up - after all this was clearly a good deed from a good Samaritan, proof that they exist, right? 

You would think I'd know better by now, at least suspect that unless it is a brother or a very close lifelong friend, any man who takes a sudden interest in assisting me where I need it most, is probably not altruistic in his motives towards me. Yet it's not like I look in the mirror and imagine guys just want to shag me, so somehow it still always catches me off guard.

As a result, I was rather relieved when he finally left, and did not feel as grateful as I probably should have - not only was his 'good deed' tainted to me now, but his carelessness had also caused me an actual inconvenience.

My best friend was unavailable most of the day, so I had to disconnect the fence for the night and so I set about processing the freshly cut bamboo sticks, while they were still soft and workable, in a deeply troubled and contemplative state. Most of them I cut to size to dry as gardening supports and one rather thick one I hollowed out to convert into a rain stick.

Others I tried to convert into staggering lengths, for potential bamboo wind chimes.

Fortunately, the following day, my best friend was able to walk me through the process of fixing the wires again, at least temporarily.

First I had to clean off the insulating plastic sleeves from the wires with a pocket knife, careful not to damage any of the wires.

Then with multimeter in hand, I set about determining which were the earth and which the live wires... and yea, I got it right the first time, then second guessed myself while explaining it to a guy, and so I first attached the wrong wires to each other. 

That led to a lengthy investigation of the whole fence and then troubleshooting the power supply, where I finally discovered my error.

So I went back to the connection, and re-did it, but at least the second time around I understood what I was doing and was confident in my choices, and so finally, the connection was also a success.

Then I taped it all up again in insulation tape, and doubled over it with yellow ones to make it more visible in future - just in case some other overly eager male hacks his way through the bamboo forest again. 

Yea, they will probably crucify me for stereotyping the genders, but from experience my own gender is stereotypical female. I thrive in my domain, derive great joy from it's challenges and all. 

Yet I cannot understand why life won't allow me to also only ever be just a girly-girl, with all the perks and exceptions. So I cried last night again, because I also want to be just sugar and spice, and all things nice, like all the other girls.

...

In retrospect, it was really not a train smash, so why should I be this peeved about it?

Because this, this doing man stuff, because I'm often the best 'man' in the room to tow a car properly or fix an electric cable neatly, this just gets me blue. All in all, it feels like I learned a valuable life skill in the process, but a male life skill, to put it bluntly. One the neighbour should have learned and not me, because he clipped the wire, but I was left to fix it.

In reality, I guess I'm just annoyed because this guy is showing me interest, while the one I like, still doesn't. In truth, his gestures and advances would have been incredibly adorable, even honourable, in-spite of the accidental cut, were the feelings mutual... but unfortunately, they simply are not.

WORDS: rhodenel©20NOV2024 

PHOTOGRAPHY: rhoderuth©NOV2024