If I was worried about not having enough space in the yard waste container for all the weeds I was going to pull this weekend, I was worried about the wrong thing. That's an awfully big container, but there are an awful lot of weeds in my garden and around the yard. I'm sure there are enough weeds to fill it up ten times over, but not by me.

What I should have been worried about is how long I would last, doing actual physical work. It turns out I'm a little out of shape. It turns out I don't last very long when I'm pulling up weeds. The weeds, it turns out, have little to fear from me.

The container is now half full, which sounds semi-impressive unless you know that it was already one-third full when I started. It's been one-third full for three or four months now. All that bending over sent me gasping back into the house after about fifteen minutes, but I left all my tools outside, just in case I should feel like trying again.

And I did. This time I lasted ten minutes, then gave up for the day. You can't tell I did anything unless you watched me do it. There is a small patch of clear ground in the middle of the garden, where weeds were growing earlier today. The cats who wander through my yard will probably turn the fresh dirt into their newest litter box. They always seem to find the softest ground, wherever it turns out to be.

So I have a way to go before I can be satisfied with my early-season gardening progress. I'll try again tomorrow, weather (and sore back and legs) permitting. It's a never-ending process, so it's not as if I had any notion I'd ever get finished with it. Sometimes you can look over the work you've put in and feel satisfied that you've accomplished something. I didn't quite get to that point this time out.

This time of year, there's so much overgrowth in the yard that I can choose to start with the easy stuff, the kind that will come out by the roots even if you pull it up by the leaves. And the ground gives so easily that a person in better shape than I am could get a lot of stuff cleared away without much effort. It's too bad I couldn't take better advantage of these fortuitous circumstances.