Saturday, 02 June 2012
My sister and her husband came over today. They really love this restaurant that’s about three blocks from our house, so we all walked there. Then afterward, they took some vegetation from our yard.
The previous homeowner, in his infinite foresight, decided that the best way to up the value of his property was to landscape the shit out of the yard. I’m not sure why he didn’t think, “hey, maybe I should rennovate the basement,” or “maybe I should fix the porch so it’s not sliding toward the river,” but, he didn’t. Instead, he thought: “you know what prospective home buyers hate? Yard. So I’ll rip up the grass and do a quarter-ass job of putting in all manner of shrubbery.”
I suppose that is a great idea, if you’re going to sell your place to a couple of senior citizens. But if you’re going to sell to a family, with kids, then they’re gonna want more land, and less oversized bushes. And, yes, I realize this means more area to mow, but I don’t mind telling Owen to do it. Not at all.
So, today, my sister and her husband took five bags full of mulch and at least five bushes with them.
I’d like to say the yard is looking better but, in fact, it’s probably looking worse. But I think that’s just a stage it’s going through on its way toward re-beautification.
Sunday, 03 June 2012
Today Owen and I drove to the compost heap (which is what we call it, despite the fact that I’m sure it has a better name). I stuffed ten bags – of both the large plastic variety and the tall, leaf sort – into the car, which is quite difficult to do when there are two child car seats in the back taking up space already. I managed to squeeze two into the front passenger spot, and five into the trunk. I squished one right on Isla’s car seat, and another in the middle in the back. I shoved the last one right behind the driver’s seat, which meant Owen used it as a footstool during our drive.
At the heap, I extracted the organic matter from our vehicle, while Owen either dumped out the contents(in the cae of the paper bags) or ripped open the bags (the plastic ones) and let the leaves, sticks, weeds, clippings, and roots splay out onto the ground.
A woman pulled up next to us in her pick-up truck and began shoveling compost off her bed. She was friendly, saying to me: “I see you’ve got your helper with you!” (This is something that everyone says when they see either Owen or Isla standing, walking, squating, interfering, annoying, or genuinely helping either me or Jennifer when we’re doing stuff outside.) I made some comment about Owen enjoying the work, and she said, “That’s a blessing!” I smiled and nodded and mumbled something. I wasn’t sure what she meant – was it a blessing that Owen liked to help? Was she saying God or Jesus or some deity was manipulating my son’s brain so that he enjoyed engaging in physical activity?
Later, the compost heap’s version of a State Trooper came by and said hello, then he moved on to the woman unloading her pick-up truck and said, “Woe, you’ve got quite a lot unload there!” This was especilly funny because the woman, though slightly shorter than me, was approaching 400 pounds. Her arms were easily of greater circumference than my thighs, a fact easily verified by her courtesy to wear a sleeveless shirt.
Anyway, she kept working away and said, “Yes, I’m gettin’ it done with God’s help.”
I was going to say, “Hey, we have something in common! Looks like God helps you as much as he helps me!”
But I didn’t. Instead, I just thought, “I’m gonna blog about this.”
Yeah, I think that a lot.
Monday, 04 June 2012
Today, Jennifer scored some free sod.
Turns out, someone who lived nearby just piled some near the curb and posted online for would-be sodders to come and get some.
This is good timing because, as I noted above, we are removing large samples of flora and attempting to replace them with lots of small samples.
The funny thing is, this doesn’t appear to be of the same species as the rest of the grass. So, if you come to visit, except to see rectangular-shaped portions of our lawn to be noticeably different than the rest. This is just fine with me, though. I don’t want to promote a monculture; I think the variety helps with the health of all the plants in the yard. I suspect that after a few summers, the foreign grass will meld with the natives and it will seemless fade from one variety to another.
I suspect that, just like the United States, this will take at least 300 summers.
Oh well. No rush.