One Down, Four to Go, and Counting

It feels good to finally get my closet remodel done, but now on to more important projects including re-roofing the shed, having a yard sale, repair fence, maybe building a cement step, and the most important: removing my old heating system and adding the new one before fall. I plan to do this next so I won't put it off until it's too late and too cold.

First, procrastinate. How I dread having to get under the house and wrangle fiberglass ducts and furnace parts. Besides the rats and opossum shit, dust, giant spiders, mold and anything else I really don't want to crawl around through. I haven't had a whole lot of energy lately either, so I'm waiting until I'm motivated with some extra time to spare.

So instead I cleaned out the "back 40", not acres, but footage along the back fence of the backyard. It was overgrown with weeds and getting pretty ugly. I've wanted to trim the overgrown camellia bush into a tree for years, but that's where Peter used to live so I didn't want to destroy his safe place and eliminate what was one of his few dark, quiet, private hideaways. Unfortunately I didn't take any before photos of the ugliness before I dug it all out, weeded, trimmed, and cleaned. I took three wheelbarrows of garden scraps out and one whole van load of tree branch trimmings. I also trimmed the yew to the far right as well as the cherry on the other side of the yard, and the contorted filbert in the middle of the yard (not seen). Then I headed to the hardware store and bought a load of cedar bark and a load of pea gravel.

It now looks much nicer:

See the little green plant at the bottom center of the photo with the rocks around it? That's what's left of my award-winning Citrus Mint. I had a whole garden filled with it. I think the weeds took over and killed it and the bottom branches of the camellia hung over it. I didn't think anything could kill mint. I'm trying to save it. Those little, bright green plants all over the gravel are rogue feverfew. That little garden bed to the right was where the feverfew grew but I trimmed it too much (I think) and it never came back...but it's offspring sure did. I'll wait until fall and try to transplant the rogue offshoots into a bed. I love new gravel. It's so clean.

This is a better view of the camellia as it now looks like a tree. Before the branches bulged out all the way to the cement border and Peter would hide under it in the cool shade. That big stump in the middle of everything is slowly rotting away. If I can get someone to loan me their axe I'd annihilate it, but the wood is too hard for me to destroy with just my hammer. See the little stick bush to its right? That's what's left of the huckleberry bush. I'm leaving what's left for birds to eat. Problem with this side of the yard is I never get to the back to water anything so the only thing willing to grow was weeds. Eventually I'll remove the whole huckleberry bush. I don't like huckleberries.

Well, it's been a good thing to get done, but it definitely kept me from having to crawl under the house!