It's a Jungle Out There

Yard work this morning before the temperature raised to cremate level. M's still out there mowing, poor guy. We, okay he, mows about 3.5 of our 7 acres. Takes about three hours just to cut the lawn, not including running the weedwhacker. So after a year of that once a week the mower was in need of some serious maintenance this morning. He has big plans for a "real" tractor some day, we'll see about that.



Speaking of weeds, this is what they looked like last fall. All of the flower beds had weeds up to 10 foot tall and apparently half of that was poison ivy. I now know precisely what it looks like and can spot it a mile away. I wanted to post this to remind myself that in spite of the terrible growing conditions this year, we really are making progress out there.



I weeded and mulched around my bargain Walmart clearance $4.00 shrubs this morning. They're amazingly not doing too bad, considering the conditions. In a few years they'll fill in nicely. I also added another coat of paint to the back door for Lucy to scratch off.

Earlier this spring we removed the metal-stake and clothesline-wire contraption that was supporting the wisteria near the driveway. Replaced it with a split-rail fence running the length of the flower bed. Looks MUCH better. And we were pleasantly surprised that it fit perfectly allowing room for the walkway we added last fall. Almost like we planned it. Still need to figure out a better way to support the sweet peas though. Maybe some sort of netting under the bottom rail when they're first coming up? Stupid moles seem to have finally moved out of this flower bed on to greener pastures...the back yard. Bandit was after them again yesterday. Our yard bears a striking resemblance to the surface of the moon.




Wanted to put a second coat of spar varnish on the exterior door from *&%# refinish project, but it's too humid. Maybe tomorrow. It's already been a seven day process, what's a few more? For those who haven't already suffered through my complaining, I started stripping what seemed to be a nearly bare wood door last weekend. Come to find out it wasn't bare wood at all. It was a badly worn faux grain finish. Apparently made with an opaque base coat (milk paint maybe?) that had penetrated the wood so deeply the stripper couldn't get it all out. Of course, once you get to the point where you realize what's going on it's not like you can just stop. You're in for the long haul. I was ready to cave in that first day and just paint the darn thing, but M insisted he wanted to stain it and spent two days scraping and sanding it. The next day I applied the stain. We now had a blotchy mess, but you could at least really see where more stripping and sanding was needed. So I did. Then re stained.... you get the idea. And the best part? Three more just like it waiting to be done. Woohoo!