The Treasure Of Moctezumza...... Adventures in my backyard

[GrinningKittie 0]

....is actually my walkway.What?????Okay so my husband wants to re-fi the house. I'm pretty dumb on the financial parts of it however I know the better the house and property looks the better the session. I've been doing ALOT of projects that have been on the "Need to do...but maybe some other time" list. Such as clearing out the basement ( UGH!) which leads to making dump runs ( and I have no truck so it means scheduling with friends and budgeting in dump run money), finally painting and reflooring the laundary room ( which my roommate Jay dubbed as "Saw worthy"...in reference to the Saw movies....and yes...it was pretty dreary, depressing and scary),and taking out the walkway on the left side ( left if you look at it from the front) of my house ( this thing was hideous and easily 30 plus feet long and was reffered to as "The Death Trap" as it was made in a way that three steps in one may trip and easily break several bones, the kindest being ones neck in this case). The Death Trap ended up with me straining my back ( as I had to smash all the LARGE UNEVEN pieces, carry them with a flat wheel barrel over lumpy terrain while avoiding purgatorial basement junk). SoOoOo I'm not supposed to move anything heavy ( and I have mostly stuck to that especially as some fellow looking for scrap metal hauled off several LARGE junker items from my yard.....YAYZZLES!!!). I still have loads of stuff to do. One of those (many) items is.......finding the nice brick and stonework walkway that came with this house.Huh?Yeah. Most of my friends ( including my roommate) didn't even know I HAD a nice little path like walkway ( nothing like the Death Trap). Not with 1/2 inch of dirt topped by Dandelions, unknown weeds, Nature's Natural carpet components ( Moss and Grass), Morning Glory, and Blackberry brambles ( mixed in with bits of trash, coal, ashes, glass? and basement junk). But truly it is there. I know. I started the adventure for treasure hunting yesterday. I spent probably 3 hours yesterday ( kinda hard to weed and dig and dispose and sweep and swear with the wrong tools when your kids are home......and no them helping is not really help....my son's ADHD/ODD is a constant exercise in reminding and redirection and my daughter's autism means making sure her OCD " must peel skin"....or pica..." must taste test dirt" real gardening chore deterants).I did manage to uncover about half the walkway ( and make my way down to the dirt on the side closest to the house after fighting copiously with Morning Glory and several Blackberry bush roots the size of small softballs) though.Today I started out fresh ( and tired beyond a new zone) sometime a little after 9 am and did not truly break until 1 pm. In THAT time ( along with several minor distractions and a couple of smoke breaks) I managed to finish THAT portion of the walkway, clear out afore mentioned dirt area ( about 3ft wide by about 6 feet long give or take), put down some fresh soil, plant random mystery seeds ( courtesy of seeds in a cannister), and water said seeds. I did a starter kit of these things in the house and they survived so I have high hopes that they should ( hopefully) do well outside.......Jay ( my roommate) was going to weed eat however I told him to wait so he went ahead and found the beginnings of the cement path that starts at the bottom of the back porch stairs.My husband ( Jerry) had come home from CQ ( which is a 24 "guard the desk at the barracks " kind of job that turned into a roughly 30 hour shift as he had to go to sick call to have his shoulder/back area looked at right after shift......long story there) and tried his hand at the weed eater ( in order to take down the rest of the jungle I refer to as my back yard. No seriously. I think I spotted a Liger in it the other day....). The weed eater came from another friend. The weed eater is sick.It is rejecting itself in facsinating ways....... SOoOoOo....weed eating was out. That is okay.About 1pm I followed my husband upstairs for a nap ( I was wiiiiiiiiiiiped). I think I fell asleep about quarter to 2pm ( last clock check was at 1:36 pm). I woke at 3pm ( yayzzles for alarms). Rousted myself up slowly and grudgingly. Went to the store and grabbed Marbs. mmmmmm Marlboros........Had some copious amounts of caffeine ( hush....I needed it!!) and went back outside to go rediscover the REST of my walkway. I finally stopped at about 7:30pm ( so add about 4 hours here.....).What I got done was the area Jay was working on and then the left side of the walkway ( left if you are looking at it from the inside of my house......I had been working on the right side all morn and into the afternoon).While I found no treasure I did find a walkway.I also filled up my brown recycle bin ( lawn clippings and all that).And part of my garbage bin ( shhhhh)And gave parts of my lawn a ghetto fab mowing with a pair of scissors. Yeah. I really did that.And nail up Nelly II and Ugly ( my CAT FREE Pileas Birdsnest and Strawberry Begonia.....my first Pileas Birdsnest finally kicked the bucket because my cats took turns SLEEPING on it).So far........I have changed my clothing out TWICE today.I managed to sunburn ONE arm ( my left one) even though it was na particularly sunny or warm.I have severely exfoliated my left arm the natural way ( keep mindlessly bumping and scraping arm up against denim that is laden with layers of dirt.....possibly glass in some instances).I have a callous/blister on my thumb ( right hand).My back keeps trying to steal my phone so it can call up a lawyer and press charges.The rusted shears I was using to stab at weeds and root them out ( they had no cutting power....the sheers that is) are in rehab for a rather excelerated case of Alchohol posioning.....The...I don't know...I call them Lobster Sheers ( pruning? They have one blade hooked and one straight and can cut through thumb thick brambles with ease) are as sharp as a narcoleptic zombie ( Aaron my son managed to accidentally sheer through part of the chain link fence in his endeavor to help me rid MORE blackberry brambles).The scissors ( which took the place of Rusty the stabbing sheers and doubled as my Ghettofied lawn mower/weedwacker) seem to have survived the ordeal happily.My gardening gloves will never know the meaning of "clean" again.I have officially joined the "Black Foot" clan ( as I work in my sandals since my achilles tendon still aches......long story here.....the short of it is sometime in December I partially tore the achilles tendon in my right foot.....OW....in normal shoes.Note here I finally have understood the TRUE meaning of "ground in dirt").But.....I have a walkway.Well mostly.I still have a straight path from the bottom of the cleared out porch stairs ( which Jay was scrubbing the dead moss off of ) to the parked car ( what 10 feet?) to de-weed and shear and clean up. That will be tomorrow.Along with some harvesting of Swiss Chard and Fennel ( I guess the last owner had a bit of a garden and the Swiss Chard <---which I thought were GIANT weeds until my neighbor told me, has taken over while the Fennel NEVER dies no matter how smashed and thrashed it gets.....my sister wants some for her garden). I also need to relocate some Spanish Bluebells ( beautiful, easy and spreads like weeds) to cover some bare patches. I also need to get some Forget-Me-Nots ready ( again for my sister as well as some of those Blue Bells......she's gonna give me some Dead Purple Nettles....yes I know it is a weed but it is a medicinal and edible one) AND transplant some Rose Campion ( which survived last years session of Aaron and his friend KC's expidition in helping me out by weeding....).And THAT is just the backyard ( I still have Blackberry cuttings to dispose, some Clover to dispose, some brambles to cut back and some REAL mowing).The front yard needs some cleaning up too.....So while I did not find any gold in my backyard ( Jay did note though that there were several pennies and dimes to be found) I have obtained some pride in regaining my walkway.Hats off to you my walkway nemises!Morning Glory I give to you the "Easiest Weed To Pull Even If You Have a Very Lengthy And Annoying Root System" award.Dandelions I give to you the "Tenacious Root Gripping System" award.Blackberries.....to you I give to you the " Deep, Bizarre, Steroid Ridden, Conniving Root System " award.And last but not least 1/2 inch of grassy carpeting to you I give you a thumbs up for finding purchase and making a stake out when there should have been no surface for you to do so in the first place.To all the potato bugs, grubs, slugs, catepillars, spiders and centipedes.....sorry guys. I tried to make the relocation process as easy as I could for ya'll.......So why all this hard work?Because if you neglect something long enough ( give this project two - three years) Nature WILL intervene.She's GREAT when it comes to prime property.I've never been a real gardening type. Mostly because I am terrible with plants. I go by the book and still they choke on me. Plants have to be forgiving AND hardy to survive me. The only houseplants to survive more than two weeks with me are the Pileas Birdsnest and Spider plants. They just don't care.My only real dealings in the past with outside plants were weeds ( Woody Nightshade LOVES me and FOLLOWS me) or bulbs someone else put in before me. I am having luck though with Irises ( which I planted two years ago.....long funny story on those.....they are a hardy forgiving type so if you are like me get some irises....the ones that bloom white/light purple I swear you can't kill them!) and Campion that a friend gave me.The Daffodils, Forget-Me-Nots,BlueBells, and SpiderPlants that do crop up in my yard ( along with some sick Silver Dollar plants, weak Golden Plum trees, Swiss Chard, Fennel,and Lamb's Ear) are all from whoever lived here before hand.I hate rejection ( though I do love plants) and so it's hard for me to get into the swing of things when it comes to planting or any attempt at gardening. I seem to have gotten better at it though ( even if I don't have a clue what I am doing). So yeah. Instead of upkeeping things ( routine weeding for example) I just did the bare minimum ( mow a couple of times in the summer and shoot down any unsuspecting Ligers).I have found this though to be a gratifying experience ( my backyard is looking INVITING for people beyond the safari hunting persuasion) and not only plan to do a regular regime in upkeep and maintanence but I also am actually thinking of putting some more ( hardy and forgiving) plants in.If I can do it ANY ONE can. Trust me. Cacti cry when they see me in the plant section at any given store...........

[sheepdog 10]

What a great story, sounds so much like some of my projects. I can truly sympathise with the weed eater thing. Those blasted things have got to be the most cantankerous piece of equipment ever invented. We have half a dozen or so of them hanging up down in the barn that have bit the dust. Unfortunatly, they are about the only way to get next to fencing, and we have a lot of fencing to keep weed free. Our most recent weed eater is a Walmart cheapy, it has one pathetic little string, it won't cut much of anything except grass, forget it if you run into a woody plant stalk. And then there is getting the dang thing started, and then keeping it running, I'm usually wore out by the time it's running. As much as I would prefer to remain organic, the use of spray on weed killers is probably going to replace a lot of weed eating. A pump up sprayer is a lot easier to pack around, and unlike the weed eater, after using it for 20 minutes, I can still feel my arm. The vibration of the weed eater leaves my arm numb for several hours, after using it just a short time.

[GrinningKittie 0]

Ouch! That sounds like no fun at all! I would suggest using the Ghettofied Certified program of edging by using scissors, but it seems you have loads of space to cover and I wouldna blame you for shooting THAT idea down.We finally got the backyard done. Well mostly. LOL! I'm still having to make arrangements to get rid of the junk pile, I have no idea what to do with the rock pile, and parts of my neighbors scrap wood pile will be turned into some above garden planter boxes ( I'm feeling gutsy and want to make an above ground veggie garden). Other than that it looks very sweet and homey now. I even cleared a perfect little spot for BBQing ( we even bought a grill so we could grill this summer ).The next project to tackle was finding the Lost City of El Dorado........Yeah, yeah yeah. I exaggerated again..... what I refer to is the No Man's Land of my dreaded FRONT yard!Yesterday I was hoping I could trade my backyard in for my front. This was not the case at all. The front yard was jealous and vehement that I was spending all my time out back and so in a furious frenzy of toddler like tantrumdom, it went to hades in a handbasket and quickly. Stashed in it's hidden arsenol of weaponry I battled against such things like:Rabid Morning Glory and all it's miles and miles and MILES of root systems. They do na call that flowering weed "Bindweed" for nothing!Terrifying Tarp.....tarp that has been hiding the MG squad. See there was tarp laid down where my purple bearded Irises are now. We opted to keep the tarp ( three years ago) and plant the Irises and Rose Campion through the seemingly harmless stuff. I was told it helped controlled weeds. LIES! LIES LIES LIES!!!! If controlled means make them steroid sized then yes. It does that very well. So I had to cut through the tarp to keep my irises and campion ( which some of the campion had bred ABOVE the tarp and was doing quite well). I forgot about the beauty bark that was all over the place....... I HATE beauty bark! Random Wandering Weeds.....just when you thought you got them all something sticks to your skin and begs to be pulled out. We have identified FIVE different types of weeds in either yard ( and many of them playing ring around the rosey happily with each other).Monsterously THICK grass.......so thick it laughed when Jay ( my roommate) and I used shovels against it to do some edging......Speaking of edging we found out that this section ( the flower garden) had been cheerfully neglected for SO long that the grass had eaten the rocks originally used as a border of sorts. Rocks ranged from my fist sized to small seedless round watermelon sized. Nothing like clanging a shovel up against hidden rocks to remind you that you have fillings! When I was pulling parts of the tarp up FOUR rocks fell out!!! One was watermelon sized.........Now I know how to PROPERLY feed grass!Death Bush.......some nappy bush that I had to saw through. It used to be a fairly okay looking nappy bush until Aaron and KC ( my son and his best friend) skished it. So I got rid of it ( and more dandelions and MORE MORNING GLORY).CrackGrass......this be the type of grass ( reinforced by nappy weeds) that grow in between the segments and any cracks of cement walkways. On occasion CrackGrass will call in reinforcements from worms, grubs, colonies of ants and colonies of young earwigs. Ew. I canna stand earwigs ( even if they are really cute as babies).Tree born Blackberry Bushes. Apparently my Hawthorn Tree ( the tall nappy one that makes red berries and WONDERFUL fertilizer) got infiltrated by a blackberry bush. And MorningGlory. And Dandelions. And two other types of cheerful weeds. And even more baby blackberry bushes....Poo piles and a secret cat box......you gotta love animals. And other peeps animals too. See I try to get play dates for Link ( my 8 month old mostly Australian Shepherd pound puppy mix) with other dogs . So far he has Angel ( a 100 pound 3 year old German Shepherd) and Punchie ( a 75 pound 18 month old Australian sheperd(s)/ pit ( i think) mix). He recently made friends with an 8 month old Jack terrier named Rudy. Anyways when dogs come to play they sometimes leave a gift as thanks. Punchie poo is grooooossss. And the Secret Catbox? Under my porch. I don't even want to talk about it ( especially since there is no human access under there). That will be a project unto itself I am sure.......Crumbly vines of doom.......pounds of dead MG woven through my chainlink fence. I never thought that dead, crisp, dry, brown and LIGHT vines could weigh so MUCH! At one point I had a clump big enough to sign up as a tumbleweed for any westerns being filmed. Who needs digital tumbleweeds when you can grow Morning Glory!?Anyways this all sounds easy if you had the right tools and more people and no time line.However I was using scissors, a claw thing, "lobster" (pruning?) shears at one point, and a hammer for most of it. Jay was using his hands, the shovel and then the mower that Angel's owner loaned us. I am so happy I have a wheelbarrel and that my other neighbor told us to help ourselves to his lawn clippings ( brown colored recycling) bin. We already filled ours. And by the end of it his. And STILL have plenty left over for another two bins ( easy). Add in the game of Porch Items Removal ( a very out of shape vanity....whose drawers I am recycling into flower boxes which I will paint and nail on to the railing of my porch, a pink broken toy chest/bench, and random items loitering about ) and some sidewalk sweep up ( to clear items that fell out of the wheelbarrel when items were in transit from front to back of house AND to put back the dirt that Link kept digging up as his way of helping) and you can see why this day just stretched out like warm summer taffy.However my porch is clear and clean, my sidewalk is edged, swept and nice looking, my lawn is mowed and my weeds gone or hidden. In fact at the end of the day my friend Tuxxy came over and exclaimed "Hey! Where'd my White Trash friends go?!" LOL! Today my pal Venton came over and seeing as he has never seen my yard look so good ( I told you lawn/garden care and maintenance was never an interest let alone a strong point for me).... well he thought something drastic must have happened! He actually asked me if everything was okay. LOL!Tomorrow I have some Rose Campion to replant, some bulbs to put in and some form of area rug for my weather worn, cat clawed, dog chewed, frumpy looking porch. I'm gonna go with a dark slate blue for my porch. Blue is more or less a theme with my house. My house itself is a greyish blue ( think country, overcast sky, or slate blue) while my chainlink fence is a BRIGHT recycling bin blue color. No I didna paint it ( though it does need a touch up badly which is yet another outdoor project but one that will have to wait for a reliable day or two of sunny weather). It came like that....which I personally find neat. I honestly think that is one of the reasons we bought this house. How many people do you know that have a BRIGHT blue chain link fence? Lol!Needless to say I took today off. Unless you count the trip to Home Depot to buy a new bathroom sink ( which Jerry my awesome husband and Jay my sweet roommate are installing right now as I type). Of course THAT is a story all by itself.One thing I have learned about gardening and lawn care......it may lead to a strong and steady case of Do It Yourselfness!Lol!!

[sheepdog 10]

Oh yea, the scissor thing is DEFINATLY out of the question here. When you consider that just ONE section of the kennel is a set of 8 pens that are 35 ft wide, and 100 ft long! I'm not real good at math, but that roughly ads up to about a quarter of a mile of fencing, and that is just one section of the kennel! Of course, having the right equipment helps, but they you run into the problem of keeping said equipment in running order, and that alone can be a full time job. We have a back hoe, bulldozer, skid steer loader, and a very old Massey Fergason tractor. As I type, the only thing running is the Massey! This does not include mowers, both push type and riding we have a number of both of those too, one rider has a tiller attatchment on it, and one has a mower, at the moment, at least both of those are running.When the hubby tilled up my flower bed again this spring, a whole new crop of rocks popped up, I should of expected it, as I do believe Missouri grows rocks, and it is one of it's best crops. I picked up nearly a wagon load at his instance, they are real lawn mower killers since they all get along the edge near where he has to mow when I rake it level to plant. (which I finally did manage to get done this year) At least we don't have to worry about a place to dump them. Most years they go in a low spot in the fence where a dip in the ground gives the goats a space almost big enough to crawl out under it. This year they went into the huge ruts he made while dragging out some old cars to haul off to the crusher. Anything else we can burn here. Boy, I sure hope my tarps work better than yours did! Last year I layed up some scraps of white tarp between 2 concrete doggie statues, and the driveway. I coved them with white stone. It looks really nice, but I am starting to question the mulching cababilites of the tarps myself. I did put down 2 layers, so maybe that will help. We have some kind of grass here, don't know the variety, but it is extremely invasive. It sends out runners, not only above ground, but below, and it has an extremely tough root, it doesnt' pull well at all unless the ground is completely dug up loose. It has made some inroads into my tarps for sure. The tarps really did seem like a good idea at the time, since they seem to be really tough and don't rot, but now I'm not so sure. And you'll love this, about the only thing that seems to be able to compete with this grass is morning glory, lol! Maybe you need more buddies for play dates with your dog? Like some Wire Fox Terriers, that should take care of your cat problem! (unless of course you like cats) I have actually tried to keep cats here, but they just don't seem to thrive well. You'd probably think it's because of all the dogs, but oddly enough, it isn't. They only get the random unintellgent young cat that is foolish enough to try to tightrope walk on the edges of their runs. I had one actually killed when the steer we were raising kicked over the milking stand on one. The last cat took to sleeping on the stove pipe comming into the house, as the season ran, a small hole rusted out in the pipe, and I think he just carbon monoxide poisoned himself. Hummm..... I think I like the blue painted fence idea. Wonder what kind of paint they used? I have bought lots of fence paint, but it's always a nice bright silver color. I aqiried some really old cemetary fence wire years ago, it's probably 50 years old or older, and is a very pretty pattern, I keep it painted up, seems to just need a coat every couple of years and still looks nice. Blue would sure be cool on that though. I sure hope your friends don't disown you! Hang in there, you'll get it done. Of course, next year you will have it all to do over again..................lololol

[GrinningKittie 0]

Oh the dreaded rock crop! Tell me about it! I would really like to find out the reproductory workings of rock so I can get my crop neutered! LOL!As for the morning glory.......yeah. Tenacious does na BEGIN to describe this plant. I LOVE their flowers to no end. It's their tendancy to choke out any other living plant life ( so greedy!!!) that irks me. Why can't they choke out something like OTHER weeds!?I actually own 6 cats......lol! So yeah I wanna keep them around. They have adapted well to Link ( heck they own him so bad!). I have managed to set up some puppy play dates for him with Punchie ( australian shepherd and who knows what mix), Angel ( Alphaesque German Sheperd) and he just made friends with a lil terrier of sorts ( Rudy is his name). My cousin is staying with me and she has a German Shepherd named Ezzie. Link ABSOLUTELY adors Ez however Ez has a timid personality to begin with and so is na too sure what to make of his inquiries to playing with him.Oh yeah about the paint for my fence.....drum roll please......RUSTOLEUM! Yup. Bright blue spray paint rustoleum in a can. There are several different colors you can get. I picked mine up from Home Depot. In fact I got bored and spray painted the flower border rocks blue ( to match the fence lol). It actually turned out fairly nice!All this outdoor work has led to planning for a few more things to do too.Respray fence <----working on that...ran out of sprayLay down porch rug <----done and na a shabby job actuallyScrub off front of house <----done and that was grossRepaint porch fencing and stairs <----today maybe?Put in a new bathroom sink <----hubby and roomy did that one :lol:Still working on plans for reflooring a couple of areas in the house. See what I mean about do-it-yourselfness? LOL! My roommate ( who has been helping me out alot with these endeavors) keeps teasing me and says I should get my own HDTV home improvement show. I just slap him happily ( in a show of good friendship mind you). :)Right now I am off to go make some pirogis ( for dinner). Mmmmm pirogis!!!!