Day 74

Today I hired my friend's 11 year old twins to weed my front garden. They both don't like spiders and bugs so I was a bit concerned that this plan would not work. But money is a powerful motivator. For the price of $5.00 each, they were willing to get down on their knees and pull the encroaching weed community from the soil. Everything went quite smoothly until one of them saw a pill bug in the refuse bag she was filling. She twitched and jerked at the site of the small bug. I tried to explain that the bug was more afraid of her. It didn't work. I wasn't giving up. I then explained that if she just stopped thinking about the bug everything would be fine. That didn't work. When she asked to go use the bathroom I wasn't sure she would ever come back out. More time than was needed passed. I had to go in after her. "I have a stomachache," she said from the other side of the door. "Did you have one when you came over?" I asked. "No, but I didn't get much sleep last night," she responded. Not sure what one has to do with the other but I was beginning to get suspicious. "Come outside when you're done in there," I said.
She slowly emerged after a few minutes with one of those faces that says I want you to know that I don't feel well. I had the big trimming shears out ready to trim the branches off the front walk shrubs. "You want to do this?" I asked her. "Yeah," her excited smile was fighting with the "my stomach hurts" story. After a few snips, her brother got to use the trimming shears. The long bright orange handles are quite inviting. So much so that I think she forgot about her stomachache. We finished the weeding and both kids left with five single dollar bills in their pockets. Both of them said they want to do this again but I'm going to have to see if mother nature will remove her bugs from my garden. Good weeders are hard to find!