The Happy Tiller strikes again!

Yesterday was the 7th month anniversary of knee-day. Knee-plus-seven-months.

Well, spring has REALLY arrived at my house --- I began to till the garden last night. Now this may not seem like a challenging task to you, but you need to understand a couple of things.

One, I garden in 3 to 4 ft wide raised beds, with grassed paths in between. These are ground beds (no board or stone edges), raked into raised beds. I typically till them at the beginning and end of the season. However, last year, I had to hire someone to till them for me. Why? Because my knee would not tolerate the strain.

Two, when I till, I straddle the bed. The width of the bed is just about at the maximum stretch that I can do comfortably, and still operate the tiller. One of my primary reasons for going through with the RTKR last fall was that I could no longer garden in the manner to which I was accustomed. This includes tilling the beds twice a year.

Please think about the stress that my straddle-the-bed tilling style produces on the knee. I am leaning and pushing on the joint with my legs splayed out at significant angle. The tiller (Troy-Bilt, rear-tines, 8 HP) is pulling itself forward. I use my body to guide the tiller and keep it on track.

Last night, I was the Happy Tiller once again.

I also weed and plant using that same straddle the bed position. Again, there is a fair amount of lateral strain on the joint. And, happily, I can once again work the garden from that position.

Ah, Spring.

Spring cleaning

Well, spring is finally here. The daffodils are beginning to pop, and the forsythia should be opening later this week. And we had a dry weekend for a change, so ...

It's time to work outside! We spent the weekend cleaning the gardens from their winter and fall debris. Raking and pruning. Mowed the lawn for the first time. No pain!

We've got a modest lawn remaining (I've been converting lawn to garden for most of the past decade), but it still takes a good 45 min to an hour behind a walking mower to complete the yard. Pre-surgery, I simply could not do this, and my wife had to do the mowing. Not only was there more pain than I could tolerate, I could not not push with my right leg. Now, I feel as though I could keep right on going. There was no pain --- none!

We also washed all of the windows in the house, inside and out. This is a total of about 40 windows --- some large, some small, some two stories up in the cathedral ceiling-ed areas. Pre-surgery, I could not handle being on either a stepladder or an extension ladder. To do the upper windows, we had to call in ServiceMaster. This year, before we made the phone call, I convinced my wife that I thought that we could do it ourselves.

And we did. I was up and down both kinds of ladders all during Sunday afternoon. No problems. No pain. The windows look great, and I am continue to be thrilled with my TKR.

Now, I'm wondering if I can climb those big trees and get some of that pruning done by myself.

And just to take even more advantage of my new-found freedom, we began to paint the board fence that forms the backdrop to most of our shrub borders. Simple treated southern yellow pine wood, but it had aged to a less-than-attractive yellow-grey color. We decided to stain it a grey-green, so that it would disappear into the background trees. Once again, I can now stand, bend, stretch and pivot as I paint --- without pain, without strain, without discomfort --- for 2 or 3 hours at a time.