About a third of the way across my back yard, clearly visible through the sliding glass door, is what many years ago was a compost heap. Now it’s just a mound, a hill that breaks up the landscape by making the weeds and wild grasses that grow on top of it even higher than the ones that grow throughout the rest of the yard.

This is the biggest challenge I have in trying for the first time in my five years here to take care of the yard myself. I have the tools, the trimmer and mower I got for my birthday last month. What I haven’t had is the time, mostly because it’s rained every weekend lately. And the energy, I don’t have enough of that to go around.

I proved that today when I pulled the mower out of the garage and started in on the patch outside the back door. This was the easiest bit I could have worked on, because it’s the area I last mowed. Unfortunately, that last mowing was so long ago that the grasses have grown back — not to their previous level, but to a height I could have easily managed, if the whole yard had been the same.

Unfortunately, once I got past this previously mowed patch, I had to tackle the hill. I read somewhere once that you shouldn’t mow straight up and down a hill, but rather back and forth across it. That’s all well and good, but it’s awfully hard to cut down weeds that are over your head when you’re trying to push a mower tilted up sideways at a sharp angle.

It was hard on my back and it was hard on my legs, but mostly it was hard on my heart and lungs. I was gasping and panting and wobbly by the time I’d gotten halfway over the hill. So I stopped. Half a hill is better than none, and it wouldn’t have done anyone any good if I’d kept going long enough to pass out. As it was, I nearly had to crawl back into the house, and I wasn’t worth much for the rest of the day.

And all in twenty minutes. I thought I was tired last night, and I’d been out of the house most of the day. Today I was out for less than half an hour and I couldn’t move for the longest time. And now, tonight, the rain is coming in again and I don’t know how long it will be before I can get out with the mower. But it’s pretty obvious that I can’t do it during the week, if it takes me all day to recover.

And there’s the problem. Even if I can do some mowing every weekend, I can never keep ahead of the grasses and weeds. Once the whole yard gets done once, I’ll settle into maintenance mode and keep things under control. But if it never stops raining long enough, I’ll never get to that point. I’m feeling a little desperate about this situation right now, but I’ll keep doing what I have to do to make up for my deficiencies. Anything short of hiring someone else to do what I should be able to do myself, that is.