stevenpiziks | Yard Project

I loath yard work. Have I mentioned that more than thirty times? Probably. But I'll say it again--I loathe yard work.

There's this garden thing in my backyard. It was there when we moved in. It's a plot of earth surrounded by fence rails set into the ground. I hate gardening as much as I hate yard work, so I've never done anything with this garden thing. For four years, it's sat out there with the stuff that was in there growing more and more feral. The jungle caged inside the rails gets about five feet high in late summer, whereupon I (or, lately, Sasha) go out there with hedge clippers and slash it into submission. It's ugly and a blight and every year I say I need to get rid of it. Last year I was really going to do it, but the spring was really really rainy, and then it turned into an insanely hot summer, and I didn't get around to it.

Today was a mid-60s day with no rain. Good day to get rid of the blight.

I called the hardware store to see if they had any tillers to rent. They had only two left--a huge one and a small one. They were willing to hold the small one for me for half an hour. I dashed over there to pick it up. Turned out today was a popular day for tilling. While I was there, two more people came in to ask about renting small tillers. I was glad I called! I also bought a large and a small crowbar.

Brought the tiller back home, summoned the boys, and set to work dismantling the stupid rail border around the garden plot. I had thought this would be fairly simple. Wrong! The people who'd installed it apparently figured Michigan was an earthquake zone. There were four layers of rails, all staggered. Rather than have a single spike driven into the corners to hold the thing together, the builders had driven stakes into EACH LAYER in DIFFERENT PLACES. This meant that each rail had to be pried up enough to loosen the stake so we could get the crowbar under the head of the stake and pry it out. Three times. Per rail. Two rails per layer per side.

The bottom layer was sunk into the ground AND held down with foot-long stakes that could not be pried out. Finally, I hit on using the long crowbar to lift one corner and then Sasha and I just muscling it upright and tearing it out of the ground. My arms are still sore from that.

Mackie was put to work gathering the stakes. Aran hauled rails to the curb for the trash.

Once all that was done, I ran the tiller over the ground. The boys raked it smooth. I also tilled a chunk of the old flowerbeds that I didn't like maintaining. I had to stop a couple times to untangle roots and chicken wire from the tines. Yes, chicken wire. Apparently the previous owners had put down a layer of the stuff in their little garden. Gods know why. They didn't have a dog and didn't need to discourage it digging.

Once that was done, the boys cleaned up the yard while I brought back the rototiller. Then I bought grass seed, a sprinkler, a new length of hose, and three lilac bushes. When I got back, Kala and I seeded the garden area and planted the lilac bushes in the old flowerbeds. The sprinkler is currently watering everything.

I'm wiped!

After supper, I went to the store and bought strawberries, ice cream, fudge topping, and whipped cream. I made strawberry splits for everyone after all the hard work. And one for me.