Finger Pruning

I have a set routine that, upon completion of a column, of donning a worn out pair of shorts and a dirt-caked, nearly treadless pair of old sneakers for a few hours of yard work. It’s my time of leisure when I dwell on what level of accomplishment I feel about my finished product and to mull over what topic I might choose to write about for the next installment.

First comes the tag-along behind the self-propelled John Deere lawnmower purchased three years ago at a 12-month 0% interest rate. Paid off within the designated period, it paid for itself in less than a year and saved me hundreds of dollars since then as compared to the expense of having a lawn service do the job.

Next, I weed-whack along the edges of the driveway and the adjoining sidewalk leading up the front door step. Quick and simple, I move on to the back yard, a much smaller area but filled with a variety of bushes and flowering greenery, a pleasant view from the back porch.

Such were the beginnings of my activities last week after completing the column ‘Step-momma freight train brash but good-hearted’. It was also on this day that I finally decided to uproot a number of plants left dead from the hard freezes of this past winter, taking careful notice of the slightest bit of green that indicated they might still survive with a bit of special attention, like spot-watering.

Finalizing the day’s work, I began clipping and trimming barren branches on other surviving foliage, such as a little shaping of the East Palatka holly tree just now showing all kinds of new, green leaves after two years of struggling to reach its potential. Well, I’m right-handed but for some reason, which I’ve come assume was the position of the branch the angle of approach, I did a left-hand snip that resulted in a very audible “Ouch!”

More out of shock than actual pain, I had snipped my right forefinger and a bit of blood spurted to the ground. Lapping up a few tasty drops and rinsing it off with the garden hose but still dripping, it seemed no big deal. I was pretty much done for the day so I gathered the garden tools and took a quick shower with tinges of pink splattering through the webbing of the slip-proof bath mat. There was also a visible piece of skin that flapped a bit when I attempted to bend the finger.

By this time, the hurt was upon me, worsened because the cut was right there, on the underside of the second joint of the finger. So, on went an oversized Band-aid with a bit of Neosporin and a piece of gauze to absorb the excess flow.

So here I was with my forefinger temporarily fixed in a straight-out, stationary position. Of course, friends made comments like, “It’s not nice to point your finger at someone.” And, “What are you going to do, pick your nose?” And my retort, “See my finger, see my thumb, they’re shaped like a gun – your life is done!” Haha!

The unintentionally self-inflicted laceration was of course temporary, healed enough within a few days so I could get back to writing, during which time Sheriff Richard Nugent and his band of undercover agents brought to an end the workings of a network of felonious drug dealers. Way to go, guys! for the success of ‘Operation Oxy-Blues’. Hernando County’s top cop justly called this peddling of pain killers of “epidemic” proportions.

Also during those few days of restricted finger mobility, I came upon a (another) couple of people who had just become entrepreneurs of legitimately prescribed oxycodones – validated by means of MRIs consistent with the need of pain medications – with the sole intention of profiteering at the expense of habitual users and possibly at the cost of their lives.

As for myself, the ‘boo-boo’ wouldn’t have warranted an oxy script, but an MRI done this past year, when I had such pains in my lower back I feared my kidneys were failing, showed I have osteoporosis, not from taking hormones as my doctor had questioned, but as a long-term medical side effect from the radical prostatectomy performed eight years ago.

I could, if I should so desire, seek the assistance of a pain management doctor to supplement my monthly income with a fool’s monthly profit of a thousand dollar or more. But my aches are so few that to this day I wouldn’t know I have a back problem if not for the doctor’s diagnosis. And my conscience is clear, unlike that of others.

(There, this blog entry is complete. So out to the yard I go, the Cutco finger-snipping ‘ratchet pruner’ safely placed in the tool box.)