Yard work ugh

I HAD to mow the lawn yesterday. HAD to. It was getting really bad.

There's one patch of the lawn - it's in the bit down between the sidewalk and the street, and technically the city, and not I, owns it, but I still have to maintain it. It's gotten invaded with some kind of heavy rank grass that grows about twice as fast as the Saint Augustine that is in the rest of my lawn. And my little reel mower doesn't work that well on it, so periodically I have to take the weed-whacker and knock it down with that.

(I think it might be one of the forage bluestems, like King Ranch Bluestem, that got spread there accidentally somehow. The flowering heads - when it flowers - looks like a bluestem)

It had gotten really bad, to the point where my house was looking (to me at least) like it was abandoned or something.

So yesterday afternoon, after class, I first ran over to the Lowe's (because I couldn't remember for sure but I thought the trimmer-cartridge in the weed whacker was nearly out). Wasted 10 minutes searching for the right one - they have compressed all the "summer" stuff down to a few aisles to make room for the Christmas stuff. (Yes, Christmas stuff. I had a "th' HECK?" moment when I walked in there. A 92 degree September day is no time for Christmas stuff to be up. I might forgive it in a place like JoAnn's or Hobby Lobby if it were craft supplies or fabric, because if you're wanting to make a bunch of Christmas tablecloths or handmade ornaments, you best start on it now. But this was fake trees and pre-made ornaments)

Finally, I grabbed a spool of plain line, grumbling about having to load the cartridge myself (which is a giant pain). A worker came by and asked me if I had found what I needed. I said no, told him the model of weed whacker I had, and he hunted around and found the right reels tucked away on a high shelf in a box.

SO I bought two. (And it turned out I needed neither, but at least I have them now).

So I went home, edged, knocked down all the tall grass, and then mowed. I stopped midway and drank a lot of water. Still, by the end I was shaky and cold and headachy - probably starting with heat exhaustion (The dewpoints here have been in the 60s and 70s, which is just miserable).

Last evening was kind of a lost evening; I just didn't feel up to doing much. I showered and washed my hair on my knees because I was afraid enough at that point that I might pass out. Then I got a migraine.

I'm some better today but still shaky and have the aftereffects of a migraine (oddly, it makes me kind of dyslexic and sometimes I can't find the right word I want to use).

I did rehydrate - first, I drank a coconut water. (These are a fairly new product to me - little aseptic-packs full of the liquid from inside a coconut. They're horribly expensive - like, $1.70 a serving - but I like them and they're filled with potassium, so I do keep some on hand for times like this. I will say that what I thought was a pulled muscle in one glute (which had been aching all day - I thought I pulled it during the previous night's yoga workout) stopped hurting, so I wonder if it was just a persistent cramp). One of my aunts put me onto the coconut water; apparently she has some kind of weird low-potassium condition so she drinks it.

As I said, it's expensive (Then again, it's cheaper than most fancy coffees from coffeehouses, and it's probably cheaper than most spirits), but I like it. It tastes faintly of coconut, and slightly sweet (but not the sticky sweetness like sports drinks have) but also slightly tart (probably from the Vitamin C that's added for preservative). So it's more refreshing than a lot of things. (And it does have a lot of potassium.)

Later, I also drank a Gatorade, figuring maybe I had lost a lot of electrolytes out there.

I woke up with a headache but took an excedrin migraine tablet and now it's mostly gone.

I hope I won't have to do the lawn again until after it cools down a bit. I hadn't been having to mow it for quite a while as it had been so dry (I don't water my lawn; several people in the know have told me, "The tops may die back but unless it's a really prolonged drought, the roots survive, and it will come back"). But last week's heavy rain had caused it to shoot back up so I just had to do it.