For the last few days during my “free time,” I have been working like a madman in the back yard. What have I done? Well our backyard is lined with a tall, solid fence. This fence makes it darn near impossible to cut the grass along the edges. No problem, as we had planted flowers along the fence line for such a reason.

Except that trying to cut the grass means either a) mowing the flowers, or b) trampling them. How much space is needed from outer edge of mower to cutting swath? About a hoe’s width. And at that wide, it didn’t make sense to try and do the flower bed and a pathway for the mower. So a command decision was made.

The area around the fence is now barren, clean-cut, and about a hoe’s width from the edge of the fence.

Of course that can’t be all I do. No, I also decided to redo our birdbath garden area we created. We had originally propped it up with some cinder blocks buried under dirt. But that eroded, and we decided to pull the blocks and just put the fountain level with the garden floor. Which actually gives us more room to plant purdy flowers & sh!t.

Then of course, there was the issue of the other side of the house. You didn’t know this before, but it’s barren of all plant life. It’s barked in, meaning the owners (we’re renters!) didn’t want to have to worry about maintenance on that side, which is understandable as it’s merely 8 feet wide. And by barren, I mean filled with weeds. So today I also went and a) boiled the hell out of most of them, and b) got ahold of weed killer, just to make sure…

I also put up a new latch on a hidden, swinging door that was latchless before and saw fit to constantly bang in the wind whilst I try to sleep. And if that wasn’t enough, I found I needed to also fence off the barren barkland, too. As before the back patio just sort of “ended” at the bark, with no real clear-cut line, leading the bark to constantly leak over onto the patio.



And yet I’m bored
While I just gave you the short version and that seemed long, the reality is that it took up maybe 4 hours of my time.

What can I say, I’m good with the hoes ;-)



What about later?
Well it’s only early afternoon as I type, and I’ve still got a workout to look forward to in a lil’. The Girl has some studying to do – did I mention she’s back in college? – and I’ll probably take the dogs out to the beach or something.

Then? Well we do have a movie in our possession right now that Netflix saw fit to send to us. Syriana. It’s supposedly pretty damn good, and not only that but it deals with matters that, well… matter to me, namely dirty politics, dirty corporations, and all-around swindling by the all-powerful at the expense of the average joe, a little something I like to call the Military-Industrial Complex. It's serious sh!t.

Ought to be good. I’ll report back later on that.

Peace.

Tags: Entertainment, Animals