Jettagirl vs. “The Yard” (2009)…

So about this time of year when my joints become increasingly creaky with the threat of rain in the distance (yep, I’m so old my joints can foretell storms), I feel a tinge of guilt for neglecting my yard knowing that soon it will be too late to do anything once the rain turns it into a swampy mess.  So in the wee hours of a what would have been a lazy Sunday I lay in bed making a plan of attack and psyching myself up for the intense physical effort this would take.

First on my list was the front yard.  I knew I wanted to trim back the shrubs, cut down unruly branches from the birch that has taken over a corner of the yard, mow the lawn and generally tidy things up so it looked nice.  As I was working on trimming back the shrubs I realized I should also cut back the oleander that separates my driveway from my neighbors.  We have to back the Freestyle in so you can get out since they take up so much room and I’m constantly driving the car into the scratchy branches (eh, it’s not like it’s the Jetta or anything).  😉

Here’s what it looked like before.

I mean it's not so bad to look at, it just seems to cause more problems than it's worth.

As I was working to trim back and thin the oleanders, my neighbor Rob opened his garage door which happened to be right after I had over thinned a section of the hedge nearest the garages.  I said hi and then leadingly asked, “Hey, so what do you think of these oleanders?..” Rob said, “I don’t really like them.”  To which I responded, “Me neither!  I hate them!!  Can I cut them down?”  =)

I barely waited for Rob to say “Yeah!” and 30 minutes later I had cut down every branch.  Ah, that felt good…  =)

Totally demolished with one pair of extra heavy duty bypass loppers. Ah, so satisfying... =)

The easy part was cutting this down. Now we had to haul it to Rob's backyard. 5 truckloads!

After clearing out the oleander branches (Rob was nice enough to let us put the clippings in his side yard until we could figure out how to dump them properly) I went back to the shrubs, tree and moving of the lawn.  Here’s what that looked like before.

What a mess. The large shrub always scratched my arm going to the backyard and the tree branches nearly broke our fence. I need to whip (wHip) this yard into shape. =)

And after.

Now that's better. Behave, behave! =)

I also cleaned up the area between the garage and front door so I could finally setup the waterwheel my dad had made for me last Christmas.  It looks amazing!

After nearly a year I finally setup the waterwheel my dad had lovingly made and given me for Christmas last year. It looks awesome and I received so many compliments from my neighbors. Thank you Dad. =)

At this point the front yard was pretty much done.  It was about 2pm in the afternoon and I had been working since 9 in the morning.  I knew I needed to at least get the weeds whacked down and the lawn mowed in the backyard before I could truly call it a day.  I asked Marshall to move the equipment back there (I was running on fumes so I needed all the help I could get) and in an hour got the backyard done.  Hurray…  so tired, so sleepy, so sore…  😉

For the rest of the evening I chilled out and rested my tired muscles.  I think I fell asleep at 7:30 that night.  Seriously, that was a lot of work.  It was well worth it though as my yard looks really nice now and I can safely enter the rainy season without worrying about a tree branch taking out my fence or the backyard turning into a grass swamp mess.  Until next year!… =)

Oh yeah, and a bonus photo for ya, I also knocked down these wasp/yellowjacket nests from the front porch eaves. “You won’t hurt anyone, ever again!” 😉

Bees!!! Yeah, I knocked these nests down too.