Wednesday, March 6, 2013

work in progress

Purchasing a fixer upper provides no end of projects.  Lately we have been trying to get the backyard in some semblance of working order.  

A few weeks ago we ordered a dumpster and filled it to the max.  We threw in the components of the creepy shed that had been overwintering in the side yard, broken yard toys, the moldy toilet, miscellaneous metal thingies that we found randomly placed, another pomelo tree, an entire pomegranate bush, roots and all, prunings from the lemon and lime trees, the telephone pole part 1, other wooden beams and poles, the remains of the nonsensical downspout system, and we topped the cypress trees in the front yard.  Whew.  We only went over the maximum by a little over 3 tons. Whew.

From the salvageable shed wood we finally completed our raised beds and built a third, forming a U shape.  All we needed to do then was level that portion of the yard so we could place them.  Because that was so easy.

On Saturday I borrowed a friend's truck and hauled a load of composted manure from a local dairy.  I gotta tell you, its more work than you'd think, and not anything you want to do with your mouth open!

While I was hauling, Howard and Annie dug a trench for sprinkler pipes and hooked up the raised beds.  They found more crushed cans used to elevate the sprinkler system, more random rebar, parts of the sprinkler system stuffed with grocery bags instead of capped off and the star of the show, a bag of concrete mix that had been left in the ground and is now a hard, heavy bag shaped lump.

Yesterday Sarah and I finished filling the raised beds.  Howard and I filled in the trenches and built a compost bin.


And yet, after all of that work, the side yard still looks like this:


Can you see that grey lump where the "grass" starts?  Its the bag shaped concrete that no one wants to move yet.  Hopefully by the end of the day Saturday that whole area will be level and tilled and ready for planting.







1 comment:

Helen & Bill said...

Wow! That's a ton of work you're all doing. Sure makes you wonder what kind of morons lived there before-what were they thinking? Oh never mind, they weren't thinking at all. All your work WILL pay off.