Backyard Cleanup

I've been wanting to resurrect the blog since I hardly ever post anything here anymore, so here it is. Nothing exciting, but a few pictures from what I got accomplished today.

I've been working out in the yard a lot this past week, trying to get things cleaned up out there because while it doesn't look that bad on the surface, it's actually a horrible mess. There are rocks and bricks and random chunks of concrete all over the place, there are dead trees and branches and stumps that need to be removed, there's a horrible metal edging thing around a flowerbed that needs to be ripped out and replaced - and that's just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

Today, a friend sent her son up with a chainsaw and he helped me to get rid of some stumps and cut some branches off of an old cedar tree out behind the shed - that area needs a ton of work yet, but we were obviously doing something really right (or really wrong) when people were slowing down to STARE at what we were doing. One lady almost ran off of the road in her effort to stare us down - it was odd to say the least.

Anyway.....this is basically our firewood area. We've just been tossing anything wooden back there and it's gotten overgrown and downright ghetto-looking, so I straightened that up today. We're hoping to use some of the old fence slats to patch the holes in the parts that are still standing - hopefully it won't look too horrible until we have time to replace the whole thing.

Before...

After...

And then there's this tree... I've cut it down once already and it's back up to this. We want to get rid of it so that we have easier access to the lean-to part of the shed, because once that's cleaned out we're going to put the firewood in there to keep it from getting wet - but that is going to take a while.

Now you see it...

The tree disappeared today. Again.

Now you don't!

There is still a ton of stuff out there that I need to do. Besides just the normal mowing, we have a few sections of fence that need to come down, we have more wood that needs to be cut up into firewood length, we have at least a load of stuff to go to the local burn site, we have flowerbeds to redo, rocks to move..... and that's just the start of it.

I'm exhausted. My feet are swollen and sore. But I'm slowly getting stuff done. Having the kids in school during the week helps out a bunch and gives me time to not only get things done but to also relax once in a while. Right now I'm really only dealing with sports practice schedules, which aren't so bad - but volleyball games are going to start soon, and at that point I will lose what little bit is left of my mind.

One day at a time...