October 10, 2004

20041009

I'm so tired...
We are officially dead. Address all mail to the dead people at our house. OMG. I even took a NAP and still haven't recovered. I told Richard if this butt isn't tight by Monday, than by golly, I wanna know why. Yes, even my butt cheeks hurt. We've been gardening. Richard and I have started the renovation and re-landscaping of the front yard. It has to be done as the trees are overgrown and doing damage to the roof and eaves. This was a problem when we moved in and although Richard and I tried to remediate by keeping it all somewhat trimmed, it wasn't enough. The bushes are overgrown and have taken up the sidewalk to the house. In addition, the roots are lifting the border logs as well as destroying the lawn. The sago palm, which I love, is flowing over onto the front porch, we have to trim one whole side down to nothing so it won't poke anyone who walks up. It looks horrible. So, in the past two days, we've removed a crape myrtle, Indian hawthorn, eucalyptus and 10 junipers. This includes the stumps. We still have the sago palm and a hawthorn to remove, as well as some overgrown shrubbery we can't put a name to.We had to take the loads of cut shrubbery to the dump, which was fortunately free. We discovered that the dump has a special place to dump shrubbery and that they have big machines there which turn it into mulch, free for the taking! We had to shovel it ourselves, but its FREE! So, as Richard put it (you can tell he works in agricultural engineering at a college) we removed more biomass from the dump than we took in! I do love it when Richard talks dirty (wink). We had to take containers to get the mulch as I didn't want to ruin the trunk of my car. So after we dumped the shrubbery the first time, we filled 3 big plastic containers (including our recycle box) with free mulch. We went back to the dump 3 times. The mulch is now spread all over in the front. After that, we went and bought compost (Texan cow manure). We came home from the compost trip with 10 bags of Texan cow shit (28 lbs - $1.07 per bag). Okay, they called it manure. We opened the bags and spread it around. Anyone who talks about how Texans are shittin' ya - I now know what they mean. That shit is EVERYWHERE. However, we need to go out there and "turn over the soil" as Richard says it. I just might club him with a shovel. If I do, you all can be my material witnesses and tell them I had to. An insanity plea oughta work, too - after all who shovels shit in 96 degree weather?Anyway, we've chose needlepoint holly as the shrubbery and blue plumbago as the focal plants. We wil intersperse them across the front, except the bed where the sago palm is. After we remove the palm, I will plant red petunias and in the center, will place a stepping stone. My cascading solar fountain will then be placed on the stone. It will be a visual, scent-filled, audibly pleasing effect to any guest who walks up to the door (after the cow shit sinks in and is no longer a problem). The dogs were thrilled to be outside all day. I let them run about off-leash for most of the morning as it was quiet. Neighbors down the street were mowing and weed-whacking, but other than that only the occasional jogger went by. They behaved well enough, mostly keeping to the boundaries I'd set. Echo is adventurous and will push the boundary a little. But on the whole she obeys. They were thrilled to come inside as we went through the house to get to the car. Both love riding in the car and enjoyed me taking them from the driveway in back to the street out front! We leashed them on the 20 foot lead tied to the tree in front as more neighbors started coming and going. They still had a good time, sniffing and rolling and watching everything with interest. Flint settled down in the cool grass while Echo continued to play and wander as far as the lead would take her. We surveyed our work after the nap, but neither of us has an ounce of energy left. I even had a coke and 2 Almond Joys to perk up, but I could barely rip the almond Joy packages open. I guess I better get used to this kind of work, though. We have 3.8 acres of wild Missouri woods now and we'll be cutting down some trees and doing plenty of yard work there in the future. Dang. I need another Almond Joy.