I am getting older. I do believe that is a common malady that we all share. Old age doesn’t seem to skip anyone.

I have barely passed the half century mark but some of my joints are quite painful. In fact some days my right knee hurts so bad I find it difficult to walk.

Yesterday I had planned to clean up and trim my backyard gardens and I was dreading the task. It has been my habit throughout the years to work myself into exhaustion and pain with this gardening task. Last year I also twisted my right knee while gardening and had excruciating pain as a result.

While contemplating my garden yesterday I realized that I needed to pace myself with this overwhelming task.

My garden was not going to grow legs and jump over the fence if I didn’t get it in shape in a day, nor was it going to grow into a monster and attack me. It was merely going to stay there and wait for me to trim it in my own sweet time.

The only one who was bothered by the unruly growth of my garden was me. I needed to get a grip. So I did just that.

I gave myself the permission to do as much as I could do in a day. If my knee started hurting I could walk away and leave it for another day.

So I started working and I got busy with my hedge trimmer. I cut all of the dead brush out of the garden. I trimmed the vines back which were camouflaging my small waterfall and pond. I fixed the electrical system to my waterfall. I planted some exquisite petunias in my flower pots. I cleaned up all of the dead brush and I had enough to fill five large bags.

At the end of the day after cleaning up the mess I realized that I had accomplished quite a bit. There was more to do but with God’s blessing there will be more days to do it in.

I decided that the hoeing and the weeding could be done in small increments at various intervals so that I would not hate it quite so much.

I realized that my right knee and the pain that is associated with that joint has caused me to learn a new technique in gardening. I have learned to pace myself and I believe that is a worthy lesson.

When something is overwhelming and you just want to walk away and avoid it, splitting the task up into fragments is sometimes the best way to get the task done.