Tag Archives: backyard

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If there’s one within a hundred miles, I will find it.

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If you remember from a previous post, I’m highly susceptible to the dreaded brown tail moth rash. Seriously, if there’s one of those little bastards in my neighborhood, my town or even my county… it will find me and make me pay.

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Their hairs are microscopic and if you come in contact? You’ll know it within a few hours. Which is what happened to me after weeding my perennial bed the other day, even though I wore gloves and made a point to avoid brushing up against the tree.

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My knee…

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And arm a few hours after showering. I had the rash on my legs, my back, my stomach, my arms and especially my right knee. That section of flesh was positively on fire with uncontrollable itching… and by the next day?

* warning – if you’re eating while reading this, you might want to skip the next picture *

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My right knee looked like Mount Vesuvius, and not in a good way. Failing to understand why this particular body part suffered such an extreme reaction, I examined the pillow I was crouching on and sure enough… I had squished a moth to death on the right side and ground his toxic hairs deep into my epidermis.

Life has not really been worth living this week, and if you happen to have any extra rough grade sandpaper lying around… feel free to send it my way so I can rip off what’s left of my skin.

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The wrong kind of weed.

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Now that we had my longed for pallet of stones, it was time to attack the garden of weeden .

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Since the damage to my knee, I try to avoid anything that has to be done in a crouched or kneeling position but I’d put this off for two years and if pain was the price I had to pay for a new perennial bed? So be it.

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An hour and a half in, I was sore.

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Two and a half hours in I was popping Tylenol and Motrin like Jelly Bellies.

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At the end of the day my knee was creaking like the front door of a haunted house, but it was done. A 10 x 20 patch of virgin soil, ready for a stone border and planting.

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Rockin’ and slowly rollin’.

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We took a short break for lunch after getting the first half of stone stacked at home and then headed back out for the rest.

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Me.

Dirty, hot, and sweaty but smiling ear to ear because I was surrounded by rocks.

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While the yard man was picking up the second half of our stones with the forklift, my husband met a Marine. And if that wasn’t bad enough… he was also a fellow Vietnam Veteran. Much talking ensued. Sooo much talking. By the time they were done gabbing and ready to spread the rocks in the truck bed, the husband decided he didn’t want to go to the extra trouble and told the kid to just set it down as is.

I disagreed. Vocally and quite loudly. Naturally, I was ignored. I lamented hurting his new (old as dirt) truck and kept saying it wasn’t worth the risk of straining the engine and suspension. For that? I got ‘the look’. You know the one, the “how dare you question my manly logic?” look.

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We drove the 25 odd miles home on the back roads at 30mph with a squatted rear end and an overheating engine. The truck strained big time and we realized this second load was much closer to 2,000 lbs than the 1,500 we thought. 5 miles from home the temperature gauge was pegging out. I begged him to stop, but no. I swear at that point he would rather have blown his engine than admit I was right.

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We made it home, barely. With a smoking hood and a radiator that was literally boiling. I could hear it… he couldn’t (because he’s half deaf in one ear, thank you USMC) ergo it wasn’t happening.

Men!

You really are a ridiculous species.

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As the truck temperature came down from surface of the sun hot, we got back to work…

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And made a lovely little pyramid of stone. We’re definitely going to need another pallet or two to complete my vision of the perfect garden border. He says no, but trust me this is nowhere near enough.

Can’t say that I’m looking forward to another trip like that though.

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So we bought some rocks.

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After a full day of shopping for rocks…. the sheer joy of it made my heart sing!…. a decision was made and we returned the next day to make our purchase.

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I tried unsuccessfully to talk the husband into a few prime boulders…

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But settled for a pallet of fieldstone. Rule #1 of working with stone? If someone agrees to build you a garden border… don’t push your luck.

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Because the husband’s new (read – old as dirt) truck only has a a half ton capacity and a pallet weighs 3,000 lbs… I wanted to have the stone delivered. But the fee was $150 so my thrifty spouse wanted no part of that. The compromise? Split open the wire, divide the bundle and spread half the weight in the bed.

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This was hot, dirty work but we made the first trip home safely.

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And then stacked the rocks in the garden they’ll be bordering.

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1,500lbs of stone seems like a lot more when you have to keep moving them.

To be continued…

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Get ready for a flood of woodchucks.

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Fair warning – our baby chuckers are on the move and there will be a plethora of photographs in the near future.

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I just can’t get enough of their little paws.

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The siblings stick closely together.

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Though the occasional squabble over prime fruit and veg does occur.

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This is the runt of the litter.

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And it must be hard when the buffet is bigger than you.

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But damn, he’s a cute little bugger.

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I used to have a garden.

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I used to have a beautiful perennial garden in our back yard. It was a lovely little brick bordered bed and over the years I filled it with a varied assortment of colorful flowers.

There was purple lupine.

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The harder to grow white lupine.

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And some fabulous red bee balm.

A few years in, a little apple tree seeded itself and since I didn’t have the heart to pull it up… it grew happily alongside the phlox, black eyed Susans and Shasta daisies.

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My garden made a wonderful foreground in photos of the big barn construction progress.

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And I had many happy years of bright blooms and vases full of freshly cut flowers.

Until my husband bought the beast.

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The monster zero turn lawn mower that flings grass clippings and weeds what seems like 100 miles. No matter how many times I begged him to reverse direction and steer clear, over the years my bed was overtaken by weeds. No matter how many of the damn things I pulled, dug up or chopped… I couldn’t contain the growth and they slowly started choking out my flowers.

By 2019 I gave up.

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I bought numerous bags of mulch.

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Weed whacked everything down to ground level…

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And covered the whole thing, leaving only the tree. And while I missed my riotous blooms, the aesthetic was pleasing enough to satisfy.

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Of course the husband and his big orange beast kept throwing grass in the bed so I kept getting down on my hands and knees to weed. Until I blew out my knee in the fall of 2020 and could no longer crouch or kneel without considerable pain.

So I gave up again, and now? It looks like this.

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A large brick bordered bed of weeds. It disgusts me on a daily basis but I vowed not to touch it again until a new, taller stone border could be built. And now that the husband is retired with nothing but time on his hands….?

To be continued….

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