Yard Work

There was a time many years ago......okay maybe not that many years ago, but some time has passed.....when the yard work was a different animal for our household. We bought our house because it was on a corner lot with lots of side yard for the kids to play and a pretty good size backyard (for our neighborhood anyway). I never really cared too much what the yard looked like as long as the grass was cut for the Nazi Association people! I know that isn't nice to say, but they are pretty ridiculous sometimes......come on, give me a break...grass in the cracks of my drive way!!??? Sometimes that was the only place grass would actually grow!

The kids used the sideyard for so many years as a football field.  Most of the time we never needed to mow except for up against the house because they trampled it all down.  After a rain the yard became MudBowl! One giant brown pit in the yard! We had the ugliest yard in the neighborhood but who cared....the kids had a blast.  There was a time when I had the Courthouse Rec League field equipment that we painted football lines on the yard.....yep....and the kids loved it.....neighbors....not so much.

The planting of our yard was never a pressing desire.  I didn't care for a bunch of flowers...mainly just shrubs and green plants. We didn't have any money for new plants anyway.  It just was too much non-initial expenses for our budget. When we first moved in the house we had these two MASSIVE pompous grass bushes on both sides of the driveway entrance near the street.  You couldn't hardly see to back out.  The kids often took the "spears" off of the plant, got on their bikes and used them as lances and they rode towards each other at break neck seed.  After many hours of chopping, whacking, weeding and pounding those big bushes were totally removed.  A stump remained for a long time after until we finally regained some strength to chop that out with a pick ax!

Other bushes around the house were pulled out and replanted in different places but never really any major plantings or mulch beds were created.  We did add a elongated mulch bed reaching from the corner of the house out to the tree in the middle of the front yard after we exhausted of trying to keep people walking RIGHT NEXT TO OUR HOUSE on the way to the mail box!  Kids I can understand....but ADULTS....come on.  I will admit we tied our KILLER DOG up to the tree many times to have him back and growl at everyone as they tried to navigate our front yard. (I got to tell you that after the mulch was added there was some who had to go out of their way to go around the mulch bed....no not out in the street....but actually right up against our house!.......They could have touched the window they were so close........GET REAL PEOPLE!)

Anyway, the back lawn always grew twice (maybe three times) as tall as the front.....Front was mowed because of the Association Police, the back grew with the added "dog fertilizer"...never was a important to mow...but did get quite high from time to time. The boys always did the yardwork for me. The mowed and weed-eated.  As long as it was cut, I was happy.  There were times when I tried to tell them about the details, but it really never sank in.  If I was ever out there mowing....everyone knew I must be MAD or something.....I never mowed.

All that has changed over the last several years.  Since the kids are all older, no more football practice evenings, no more football Saturdays, no more baseball days, soccer days, softball days, basketball days.....and on and on and on....they have grown up and moved on to school, mission field and marriage.  I now take care of the lawn. Yes, now I COACH the flowers.  I love the backyard.  I have pots, plants, vines, mulch beds, stone works.....and more. The backyard is my peace.

These last two weekends, I have worked to get the mulch beds in order for the season.  Re-planting some of the annuals, trimming up the dead or the over grown, digging up and transplanting, weeding, trimming and mowing all of the yard.  It is hardwork and I don't have the same stamina anymore but I like the results.  It is some what satisfying. I cut the lawn at different angle, spray for weeds, edge the mulch beds, trim the bushes and tree limbs. Finally after all these years, I can finally have a yard that the everyone, including the kids (when they come home) can finally be proud of.

Now....to take care of the neighbors giant bulldog who keeps POOPING on my lawn! PEOPLE, COME ON ALREADY!  Have a great Summer my friends! MOW HAPPY!