Saturday, April 07, 2007

Welcome to summer

Yeah, I know, it's not technically summer yet but my muscles think it is. You see, today is the one day a year that they do the "we'll pick up any trash except for tires" day. So, we took the day off yesterday and decided to start some work outside.

In no specific order, here's what we accomplished:
  1. Started to tear down the closet that used to be the back door. I say started, because partway through, we were shut down by a bee/hornet's nest. We did get a ton of trellis stuff off and out to the pile and discovered the downspouts are really elbow jointed at the ground at all. The are straight pipe that a piece was cut off at an angle and then siliconed back together to form an L.
  2. Pulled the massive pile of ground plastic, sewer pipe, rotted plywood & miscellaneous crap from the end of the driveway out to the pile.
  3. Put the dog house out there as well.
  4. Got rid of the broken bookshelf inside the house.
  5. We were going to move the 50 gallon drum over to the compost pile to dump so we can put the drum out to trash. However, when we went to rotate it, it crumbled in two. Ugh. So, we got the ash and such out of the bottom with a hoe and put the two pieces out.
  6. Picked up and put out the wood ties that lined a path to the drum & the compost pile.
  7. Cleared 1/2 the path to the compost heap of gravel and laid down clover seed. Have to do the other half later so we'll be able to mow without having to pick up the mower to get over all the crap.
  8. Got rid of the nasty area rug and welcome mats that were outside.
  9. Used the $100 gift card we got for Jerry's to get one of those multi-functional ladder dealies, as well as put in a little more for 2 hoes and a weed puller.
There were also some lessons learned yesterday....
  • 75 degrees is still hot when you are working while having to stare up at the sun.
  • If you put poop on the compost pile, after 1 month, it's probably not done cooking and will be the worst thing you have ever smelled in your life if you try to spread it out so that you no longer have a compost pile.
  • If you put shovel fulls of ash on a ripped apart smelly compost pile, it stops the smell.
  • Our neighbors are extremely tolerant and didn't come over with torches and pitchforks because we busted apart the smelliest compost pile to ever live.
  • If you mention to your husband/boyfriend/significant-male-type-person-in-your-life that you want to go and pick up hoes, he will *always* snicker no matter how often it's said.
  • I like the weed puller, but with as many weeds as we've got, we're are going to have a bajillion little cone shaped holes all over the yard.
So yeah, yesterday was very productive and today is very painful. Good thing? Today was the first day of the Saturday Market. I got my crepe fix and we bought a Japanese Maple to start getting some of the yard planted in the colors we like and to get some coverage in the front of the house. It's small so it'll probably be a few years until it gets as full as you saw in the picture. We also found someone who stocks Lucifers (crocosmia) as well as black pansies which we also want to get.

Oh god, I'm talking flowers...time to stop typing.

posted by Unknown @ Saturday, April 07, 2007