Last week’s focus was on alley hedge work. This doesn’t look like much, but I removed three to four feet of growth from the top of this hedge, which runs the length of our property down the alley. Fortunately, it didn’t need a lot of trimming on the side — we’d done that a few months ago, and the spring growth spurt has not begun yet. We did rake the leaves gathered from underneath.

Since the topping required me to climb three ladder steps, make the trim, descend three ladder steps, move ladder, and repeat, I was pleasantly surprised that neither knee protested. To keep them from protesting, I spread this task over three days (it took an hour or two each day).

Ideally, we would have swept the alley and gathered the dirt for sifting, but that’s for another time. I did get a limb that was brushing the power line to the house removed and pruned several smaller bushes in the back yard. I watered the lawn in an effort to get a base of moisture into the ground. I can only hope we get spring rains like last year, because I won’t be able to get down there to water until July. With last year’s spring rains, the yard was sustained through that period.

The yard needs a lot of little things done, which I plan to begin working on after this knee recovery. The real benefit of bilateral knee replacements is you get the recovery over faster and can move on with your life. In my case, my schedule dragged the process out to two years.