How exciting right?! Warmer weather, cuter clothes, flowers, and best of all flip flops!  Spring is not my favorite season but it has got to be the most exciting.  The pure anticipation of everything summer; and it all starts with these tiny green sprouts coming out of the cold brown earth. 

 

These bulbs I am particularly excited to see because I moved them last year to a bed closer to the house that had absolutely no color.   We have a lot of great plants in our yard that were here before us, which is fun, but it’s also great to add new things and change it around.  The trick is knowing when to dig them up and when to replant them.  Bulbs shouldn’t be removed from the ground until they are done flowering.  It is good to dig them up and separate them every couple years.  They can be stored in a cool dry place in a paper bag or box until you are ready to plant them. 

 

I forget what these are called.  My dad told me last year but I’m really bad with plant names.  Anyway they are overflowing from the bed that runs along the fence next to the pond. 

 

This however is the other side of spring…

Collecting and burning, or moving all the branches and twigs that fell during the snow and wind of the winter.

 

Filling in bald spots in the yard and dealing with huge piles of leaves that missed the snow fall deadline. 

 

Seeing if the experiment of covering the vegetable garden will produce the desired result of no weeding before plants go in. 

 

We’re trying to wrap up the remaining wintery indoor projects, and then we can get started on some new and unfinished outside ones.  We have a long list of yard project to do, but that’s ok, I love being outside.

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A couple of my trees look like they have butts.

 

 

 

This is fitting, as animals appear to use them as toilets.

 

 

Those are pictures of the inside of each hole.  That is disgusting.

 

I had a guy out to the house this summer to give me an estimate on trimming up the trees on our property.  The price was $3800.00, and I threw up a little in my mouth when I heard that.  The gentleman was extremely knowledgeable on trees.  I actually watched his face light up with excitement at the prospect of climbing the oldest tree on our lot, which has a 5ft diameter.  Every boy loves climbing trees.. I suppose it’s not surprising that some men don’t let that go. 

 

Anyway, I took the opportunity to pick his brain on some tree-related questions I had.  One of these was what to do about holes in trees.  He said I could just fill them in with Great Stuff, so I picked up a few cans the other day.  When I went outside this afternoon to work on leaves, I decided that shooting large quantities of expanding foam into massive butt-like voids sounded much more fun.  So I did.

 

 

Each void took 1.5 cans.  I called Dad about this shortly after finishing it, and he had bought some cans of Great Stuff the previous weekend for the exact same purpose, but had hesitated, thinking it might be bad for the trees.  He’s since done the same thing.

 

  

 

As it expands, it will fill up whatever space is available in there. 

 

I had a little extra foam left, so I shot it into the void through the brick left from when we removed a derelict vent pipe during the kitchen renovation.

 

 

 

I left some room to cap it with mortar in the spring.

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I just finished watching some Doctor Who, and now I’m typing with an English accent.   Please read accordingly.

 

Fall is my favorite season.  It is likely not coincidental that my favorite colors are those of Autumn. 

 

 

993327 is a particular favorite.  I may have to find a home for it in the blog’s color palette.

 

Now, to the matter at hand. 

Do you see this picture?  This one right here?

 

 

This was taken a mile or so from me.  It’s pretty, right?  My favorite colors. That’s a nice reflecty thing going on, there.  Some nice driftwood, I guess.

All of you reading from a locale that is not graced by God with 4 seasons are insanely jealous.  Well, let me help you out there.  Autumn is a total lie.  It is over in about 42 seconds.  You know what you get then? 

 

 

You get ugly poop-brown leaves all over your yard.  Leaves are shaped like sails.  Sails catch the wind and move gracefully curved vessels lithely over the surface of the water. Not leaves, though.  Leaves feel the (artificial) wind, say “Screw you” and stay stuck to the remains of the Hostas the deer slaughtered with the single-mindedness of a fat kid on Halloween. 

 

I spent near 3 hours blowing leaves today.  Let’s cover some ground:

 

1)  Tool Review, as promised. 

I picked this up a bit ago and said I’d review it.  The Craftsman Professional 79400 backback blower kinda blows (see what I did there?).   It did fine when blowing the driveway, and it even did well on moving around larger quantities of leaves in the yard, but it just didn’t have the power to get those clingers, or behind the bushes, and it dragged out the whole ordeal longer than it needed to be.  But, it was rather inexpensive, and considering the cost of the tool that I know will get the job done, I’ll suck it up and use this one  a few days a year and be happy for it.  If you have a half-acre and 4 old trees, I’d say it’s good for you.  If, like me, you have twice that… well, you might look elsewhere.

 

2)  Leaves on Roof

Some advice.  Don’t let leaves sit in the corners of your roof too long.  They hold moisture and will shorten the life of the shingles.  Plus, the longer they sit, the harder they are to get off. 

 

 

While I was out there, I remembered a project that I bought supplies for and never got around to doing.  I’ll tackle it shortly, and grace you all with the results.

 

3) Mind the Poop

Occasionally, when they’re not busy sleeping, eating, drinking, or nudging me because they want something, my dogs will take 5 minutes to sniff around the yard for that spot that is to be graced with their poop.*  And, since I’m too busy sleeping, eating, drinking, or nudging my wife because I want something, I don’t typically get around to picking it up.  This was a problem when we lived in a townhouse and had a postage stamp of a yard, but not so much anymore.  We have an acre for them to poop on, and they are dead set on finding a spot they haven’t yet pooped, and using it. 

 

 

So, when the un-picked-up poop is covered with poop-brown leaves, and the blower being used to move said leaves has a tendency to leave poop-colored clingers behind, grasping to the grass in defiance, it results in a sort-of leaf-blowing poop-watching dance.  Just like every other stupid dance, I don’t know how to do it.

 

So, yeah, I stepped in some poop. 

 

* Sometimes, I like to imagine that Koa (one of our Danes) has a whole internal monologue going.  And that the voice of that monolog is Triumph the Insult Comic Dog.   “This looks like the perfect place…. for me to poop on!”

 

PS… I said ‘poop’ 11 times in this post.  That’s a new personal best.

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I got in a couple of trips to the County Drop-off on Saturday.  I love going there, but I hate to see some of the stuff people throw away.  Luckily, these trips were just to the brush drop-off.  The previous owners valued privacy very much, and so the foliage along the edges of the yard is overgrown by about 30 years(!).   We have 4 Ewes that are easily 15ft high with a 30ft diameter.  We have bushes that, in their attempts to reach sunlight, have become trees.  When we decided to put in the fence, we wanted it as close to the property line as possible, which meant it was time to trim this all back. 

I bought this last summer:

(see it here)

This I rate “awesome” on my tool scale.  I am not a fan of being whacked in the face with low-hanging branches whilst mowing, so I trimmed every tree up about 8ft.  I may have become a little carried away with it… I took down probably 7 volunteer trees averaging forearm size; as well as a lot of bushes.   Oh, and some trees on my neighbors side of the line that looked inviting.  And I may have tried to trim some hedges with it.  Then I cut some firewood.  And then I wandered around the property just looking for things to cut down.  Eventually, I realized I had better things to do.  Anyway, all this activity generated a lot of yard debris.  Enter my trusty Jeep and trailer.

 

The view from our hill really starts to improve when the leaves change and start to fall.  During my pole-saw excursions, I often consider climbing neighbors trees and chopping off limbs to better the view, but better sense (or an admonishing wife) typically prevails. 

Once loaded, I headed to the dump.  I stopped to take a shot after unloading half the trailer.

There’s something very communal about going to the county drop-off.  A half-dozen pickups are all lined up with guys throwing stuff out the back of them.  Everybody is asking about what projects people are up to, and nobody is averse to offering a helping hand with some of the bulker loads.  I sometimes see the same people I’ve seen before.  This is why DIYers are my people.  I also like to gauge a project by what I see people discarding.  Is that what is left of a bathroom vanity, there?  Or perhaps a kitchen cabinet? Cabinets are great, because when they fall the 15ft off the ledge to the concrete floor of the pit, they explode.  I’m a man, and I enjoy explosions.  Take note, Michael Bay.

After a couple runs to the drop-off, I took a few minutes to move a bush-trunk.  It’s not a tree, although it thinks it is.  I took it down a couple weeks ago with help from the father-in-law. 

My method, here, was to use a dog lead.  Hey, it’s what I had handy.  And it worked.   Yikes, that hill is a mess.  Maybe next year.

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I've been installing a fence over the last month whenever I can spare the time.  Today, I worked on a double-gate to allow cars to get onto the lawn.  This actually happens quite frequently.  The oil delivery guy, gravel delivery, mulch delivery, pulling my trailer back there, etc.

One of the gates w/ the ring installed for the hinge.  I put a pilot hole, then used some vice-grips to tighten them up

This digging bar is heavy and tiring, but it's hugely important.  I used gravel to fill all the post holes, and I used this digging bar to compact it.

When I was digging the post-holes, I broke a buried gutter drain I didn't know was there.  I used this to repair it.

For the posts supporting gates, I've gone a little bit deeper and I've added concrete powder to the gravel

Gate is installed.  Now to the rails on both sides.

The rails here are way too long, so I decided to try and taper them

I tried tapering them on my table-saw, but it didn't work well because the blade doesn't go high enough.  Notice the cabinet on wheels, there.  All my base cabinets in the shop are on wheels.  It makes cleaning the floor easy, and allows me to roll them around for things like this.

 

This was my wife's idea, actually.  Since tapering didn't work, this was my make-shift taper

Took a while, but I got all the fencing you see here done today.

And there's the finished gate, plus the remaining fencing material.

Still 100 feet or so to go of fencing, but then this project will be done!

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I was almost crushed by a 2000 pound accident-prone dingo.
First, the thing stopped working and I had a technician come out and tell me the engine was dying, so just run it full-open throttle or nothing.  Then, I'm following directions, safety first, etc, when the thing just falls over.  All the hydraulic fluid emptied out; mostly on me.  Anyway, here's the pictures.

I called a tow truck guy, who came out w/ this flatbed and was able to pull it up the hill for me

almost upright...

almost..

there we go

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