yards

 

 

 

This is the new front yard :Had I cleared the lawn out earlier , say a couple of years ago , I would probably have qualified for a couple of $1000 from the government . Yard welfare . Friends of ours did that .

I’m not complaining . My entire projects cost us about $2000 . Maybe a little less . Lots of rocks , and lots of work cleaning out the old scraggly lawn . I did the work myself . Borrowed a truck and a big roto-tiller from a friend . Hey , I’m retired . I’ve got the time .

Ada suspected that I would never finish . Hire somebody , she said . Get it done before summer . She pointed out a couple of the unfinished projects around the house . New doors , for example , we’ve had on the to-do list for years . Well , I saw the point she was driving at , of course , but I’m sometimes stubborn , so I went ahead with the plan . It’s worth noting , I think , that Ada wasn’t worried about me being too old for the job , that maybe I’d have a stroke or something like that . As our friend Mac is fond of saying : Just saying ! She just wanted the yard done .

So now the yard project is done . We are happy with it . By we, of course , the important one of the “we” in this case is Ada . If she weren’t happy with it I’d be dead meat . I’d be in the doghouse forever , I guess , or at least as long as the yard looked like that . That could be an awful long time . Or a very expensive situation to fix .

My friends hired a yard architect to manage their project . It cost them a tad more than my project .I shudder to think ! Let’s just say more money  than I’d be willing to part with for a yard .  Our front yard looks better that their front yard , I’d say .  Just saying  . And, as an added bonus ,  I got some good exercise without having to go to the gym . Now you’re jealous !

I tore out quarter inch wiry roots from every square foot of the yard . I hadn’t known they were there , soaking up my precious water all these years , bringing it over to the neighbor’s magnolia tree in his front yard . No wonder my lawn never did so well , especially nearest his place  . Neighbor’s tree’s roots established themselves under my driveway . They cracked the driveway , too ,   as  I had always suspected but had no proof.   Until now .

He dug up his lawn , too , by the way, and found it filled with the spindly roots , too . It caused him some considerable aggravation , which is enough retribution from me for his tree’s mischief . He put down fake grass , very green , and some red bark around the edges . He didn’t take the old lawn out , though ; just chewed it up with a roto-tiller and smoothed it out and covered it . I think , after a couple of rains , his old grass will come to life and rudely raise up his fake stuff fairly quickly ,  an inch at a time . He should’a hired somebody , I guess , but  maybe it’ll never rain again around here again nohow . Who knows !  They predicted rain for the weekend , but they’re seldom right .