Gardening Tips (On the Lighter Side): Part Two

Healthful Benefits of Gardening

If you think that over the winter months you have overindulged and packed on more than your share of adipose tissue, answer the following questions honestly.

1. When you stand sideways, do you look like a pouter pigeon?
2. When you contemplate your back image in the mirror, do you resemble a well-nourished baby hippopotamus?
3. When you manage to squeeze yourself into your jeans, do you find that every stitch has to do its duty?
4. Have you found–to your horror–an extra roll around your mid-section, making you look like the Michelin Man?

If you answered yes to all of the above, then it’s time to start gardening. Digging, weeding, lifting, and planting will soon whittle away those unwanted pounds, and by the end of summer you will be your old sylphlike self. You can cheerfully say, “Goodbye Mr./Mrs. Hips!”

DIY Project: “Touching Up” a Small 6 x 8in. Flaking Paint Area on Garage Door

by Mark Malarkey 

1. Sandpaper area. Sandpaper missing. One hour later, find scraps of used sandpaper under box of broken tools next to 10-year-old leaking cement bag now stuck to shelf.
2. 4-inch paint brush missing–F*$K!
3. Discover used can of matching paint. Lid not on. Paint resembles industrial strength glue.
4. Go to Hardware Harry’s Discount (located next to RESTIN’ Peace Funeral Accessories: “Tasteful Accents for the Discerning Mourner”). Buy 4-inch brush, sandpaper, and small can of paint (more or less the same color as garage door).
5. Sandpaper area. Area has mysteriously increased in size to approximately 6 x 4 FEET. Paint area looks darker than rest of door. Crap! Not to worry, will probably fade to match…
6. When wife goes out shopping, call painter to paint both garage doors.

NEXT PROJECT: FIXING SHELF ON WHICH CEMENT BAG IS PERMANENTLY BONDED 

DIY Project – “Fixing” Outdoor Chair that “Rocks”

by Mark Malarkey

Tools needed: saw, sandpaper, heavy file.

1. Saw four inches off three of the legs to even out. File legs, sandpaper them. Front leg uneven.
2. Saw five inches off front leg, file, sandpaper. Two back legs uneven.
3. Saw three inches off front legs. Still uneven.
4. Saw two inches off all damn legs. Chair seems to be one foot lower than other chair.
5. I know! Attach thick cardboard to legs to stabilize. Wind duct tape around cardboard, use glue to make sure cardboard is firmly attached. Chair still “rocks.” *%$&.
6. Buy new chair. 

Gardening Tips (On the Lighter Side)

The holiday season is a busy time. Sometimes it seems like everything that can go wrong will, so here are a few household tips and tricks to get you through the next couple of chaotic weeks ;).

Pruning mania:

Never allow an enthusiastic but inexperienced partner loose in the garden with a very sharp pair of hedge cutters. In a short time, an 8-foot shrub will be reduced to three twigs and a few tired-looking leaves.

Avoiding kitchen disasters:

Never go into the garden for just five minutes, leaving a pot of soup or stew boiling on the stove. Two hours later you will return to a smoke filled kitchen and a blackened pot with three pieces of slime stuck to the bottom. Here’s how to deal with this disaster.

Get down on your knees and apologize to the firefighters.

How to clean a blackened pot:

1. Into the pot pour one cup of vinegar, one of toilet bowl cleanser, six denture cleaning pills, a pinch of curry powder, and several squirts of foaming shaving cream (unperfumed).
2. Allow pot to stand for two days.
3. Empty pot of liquids; pot still black.
4. When no one is looking, throw pot into garbage.
5. Buy new pot.

Getting the lawnmower ready for summer in eight easy steps:

1. Assemble tools needed: wrench, oilcan, duct tape, screwdriver, and glue.
2. Make sure gluggles and whatsits are free of dust. Brush off spiderwebs, including spider’s victim. This is a moth so large, machine guns could have been mounted on its wings.
3. Oil fluger, being careful not to contaminate exstimbulator.
4. Using wrench, tighten all dribbets, doodads, and dactyls.
5. Fix loose handles (more or less) with duct tape and glue.
6. Empty out fuel tank. Then refill.
7. Order family and animals to stand well back (especially nervous cats).

Test by pulling cord 89 times. When five minutes away from hernia rupture, load the &*$#inh machine onto pick-up and take to a professional!