Mrs. BD gave me an early Father's Day/Anniversary present two weeks ago, and it pleased me greatly. It was five (legal) strong and energetic Mexican yard guys for 9 hours to clean up various unpleasant outdoor messes which had gotten out of control around the semi-elegant but rusticated Maggie's HQ.
If you knew me personally, you would know that I naturally worked alongside of them all day (with chain saw mostly, and some carrying of firewood, rocks, and branches), tipped them with $20 each, and gave them cold Coronas with lime slices at the end of the day. They arrived at 8 am with chipper, giant dumpster, tools, grass seed, hay, weed-whackers, an industrial tiller, etc.
Among other tasks, we cleared out almost 1/5 acre of weeds and dying shrubs and trees, removed roots and stumps, removed evil porcelain berry vines, thinned out some of my older spruce and cedar plantings, cut firewood out of some trees and large branches fallen from Sandy, shrunk my vegetable garden by 1/2, tilled, raked, and planted grass. While I tend to be opposed to lawns on principle, it was the only way to make this particular area not look like crap. Luckily, it has been cool and rainy almost every other day since we finished and the grass is coming in nicely. Thanks to global cooling, it's cool, windy, and rainy yet again today. Grass loves cool and wet.
Feels like Ireland up here. I like it. Got a sweet-smelling fir-log fire going right next to me as I type.
What a good present that day was. Thanks, Mrs. BD. These guys work as hard as I do, but they have bigger muscles. Well, I spent most of this past weekend trimming all of the hedges and misc. gardening, weeding, log-splitting, and transplanting at the direction of Mrs. BD. Are gardens ever done? Never. I do all of the outdoor work I have time to do. It's good exercise and the results can be gratifying. Next weekend, I plan to do the necessary lawn plugging but not, of course, on the new area.
Owning properties is an endless war against nature and her insidious Second Law of Thermodynamics.
Now I just need those 5 guys for one more day because I still have a to-do list and I need a dump truck load of mulch and a truck load of fresh driveway gravel. Maybe next Spring?
