Lots Mow To Do 'Round Here

I'm not the lawn mowing type. I just don't like it and I have a recently discovered severe grass allergy. But this past Friday night, I made an exception. One section of our yard, the steepest hill where lawn tractors fear to tread, was seriously out of control. Grass like long hair flowing downhill... Locusts popping up everywhere. Weeds! Prickers! It was absolutely untamed.

Mike taught me how to run the push mower... yelled at me for wearing flip flops.... and I was off and mowing. Turns out it's pretty difficult to mow such a steep grade. Mike ended up having to help me because I was in serious danger of falling down the hill with the dang mower. I just couldn't cut it. (Ha ha, lawnmower humor.) But with the two of us, we mowed the most of it.

Then, I pulled out all the weeds and locust sprouts. Mike was inspired to teach me how to run the small chainsaw, since I'd done so well with the lawn mower. I successfully cut down one small locust that was choking out a maple. Although as soon as it came down, huge spiders started jumping out of the tree like rats off a sinking ship. It was terrible. I hate spiders. So I guess I won't be quitting my day job for a landscaping life anytime soon.

After the weeding, we still have a little more mowing to do, but by this time, the sun had set. No use trying to mow in the dark. At the last moment, Mike got out the weed whacker and cut the grass on the very edge of the hill, finishing at least that half of it. And we need a retaining wall there pretty badly, I thought. But these things must wait.

Saturday afternoon, I spread some of our leftover gravel in the "machine parking area" at the back of on the yard. There wasn't enough gravel left to even cover half of the area properly, but at least my little bit of shoveling and raking took down the few small piles hanging out in the far corner. One of Mike's clients is giving him a free wooden playset on Wednesday, so I knew I had to at least attempt to tidy up back there. And yes, I just said a free wood playset. A big one with a slide, swings, and a fort on top. I'm so psyched about that. Hopefully Mike will be able to actually move his trailer and pick it up on Wednesday. That would make my week right there.

I should have been painting the porch ceiling Saturday afternoon, but I discovered that we're out of fuzzy rollers. Ok, they're probably like $1. But it was also about 85 freakin degrees out and I didn't really feel like taking off all the patio furniture, lugging out the ladder, and so on and so forth with the drop cloth and yadda yah. Maybe the thing to do is to paint in the evenings when it's cooler. I'll just have to get myself a fuzzy roller and half a glass of motivation later on this week.

Can You Dig It?

Just call me A Mess. After a near- recovery, I've slipped into relapse town. I don't know if this is allergies, viruses, infections, or just generalized internal chaos (great band name by the way) but I'm sick and tired of it. So sick and tired that I've resumed all normal activity - whether I feel like poo or feel like sunshine, I do whatever I normally do. I just have to. That's the bottom line. I can't stay stagnant for weeks on end.

Since the garage doors are in and working and since the remainder of my railings are still on back order, Mike and I have moved forward on other projects. Just last Friday I came home early and painted a lot of the farmer's porch trim and puttied some more nail holes. I still have the front facing, exterior farmer's porch trim to putty and paint - but that will have to wait until Mike sets up the ladder for me. Because I'm petrified of heights. (As my good friend Ryan put it, "I'm not afraid of heights - it's just that 'Woe!' feeling you get when you're on top of the ladder.")

Mike, meanwhile, continues to clean up his mechanical hoarding. Last weekend he gave away a set of rims and a giant tire.

And just this week, we're gearing up for warm sunny weekend weather with a couple projects in mind. Just last night, for example, I tidied the camper in preparation for its departure on Friday. Tonight, Mike will install his brake controller so he can safely tow the thing to our friends' house. (Yes, we share the camper.)

This move will free up the gravel driveway so that Mike can use his skid steere to remove all the rocks and fix the grade. (Out and away from the garage this time!) Once this has been accomplished, we'll order a dump load of loam and have it dumped right in the once-gravel driveway area. And this is because....

Next Sunday the 8th, Mike is borrowing a bigger machine from some friends of his to grade the backyard and spread the loam. (Nothing says Happy Mom's Day more then big machinery....) And I know we previously decided NOT to re-grade... but Mike has the opportunity to borrow the machine for free and we're eager to dig below and cover up any broken glass and debris leftover from last year's vehicle headaches and trash burying of years past. SO, there ya go.

Additionally, Friday or Saturday night, Mike is going to pick up stain and the porch staining machine. (Three non-rainy days in a row? Yup, I'll stain for that.) Tonight and/or tomorrow night, my task will be to clean off the porch in preparation. And hopefully with the machine, it won't take too much time once we get started either.


Stay tuned - this renovation freight train is coming through....

Wishful Photoshopping

 

 Ta-Da! Look, it's beautiful end-of-May-type weather and Mikey and I are headed out to the backyard to play... and the backyard looks so beautiful that I can't help but take this photo.... (click to enlarge)

That's the reality I wish I was living in right now.

This is an extremely photoshopped landscape portrait of the backyard - which I created by merging two skuzzy pictures from Spring, 2010.

Look, the garage addition hasn't even been built yet in this pic. Amazing! (Hard to believe it was just last year? I had to think about it... was it 2009? No - I looked it up on the blog. We began garage addition construction in April of 2010.)

So obviously I added in the addition - with an addition of an addition door. I extended our side-gravel driveway up to that door and added the most perfect grass you've ever seen. The green in the background I actually stole from a much earlier summertime backyard photo - so that is actually what it will look like in back.

Then, since we have a lovely drop-off style cliff just on the horizon of the backyard, I decided to add a Mikey fence. Behind which, we'd store the skid steere and the trailer. (Actual skid steere and trailer may vary. Images for illustrative purposes only.)

Then some hydrangeas on the base of the hill to the left... some azaleas on the base of the hill to the right.... a coat of black paint for our Trogdor burninator apparatus (plus some gravel underneath for safety)... and two of my favorite trees in the known universe.

Looks oh so simple, right? (I tell myself while at the same time reminding myself that We-Can't-Start-Any-New-Projects.) I wish I could just handoff the pic to some landscape dude and say, "Make it so #1."

Unfortunately that's not all. The first pic came out so awesome that I just couldn't help but do another angle.

I took the liberty of adding a bucket of Coronas to this pic... add me sitting in one of those chairs and Mikey going down the little slide... Oh yeah. That would be a dream come true.

Hey! There's a quarter in the gravel! I guess I forgot to take one out. Oh well.

Believe it or not, I went through several incarnations of this angle to really get something sweet. I tried everything on that back garage wall. A couple wall mounted trellises.... a cabana thing... a different patio set... but I really just like this simple awning with the two chairs, a burning bush, and a small decorative trellis. I don't have THAT much room back there, after all.

Here's the pic I started with this time. Note I kinda moved the scene to the left... couldn't help but to do it. I don't have any pics facing the right direction.

Ok landscapers. I'll pay you like $100 and you make my yard look like this. Deal? Deal.