Lawn Service

 I have a new mower. It's rugged and sleek. It's sturdy and well built. Above all, it's sexy!

I call the new mower Susan, cuz that's her name.

Susan won't let me mow anymore. So she has been breaking out the Honda whilst I sip mint julips on the porch.

It's not quite that bad but if I want to mow, I'm going to have to do it while she is at work. That's how I do all the stuff she doesn't want me to do.

The big project for today is to get this cabinet

up these stairs.

From my preliminary investigation, I believe it can be done. The trick is going to be the switchback. I have cut a piece of cardboard to match the length and depth of the cabinet. According to my simulations, it should work. It seems like it will make the switchback.

In the end, we decided not to try it.

So we were looking at the cabinet and came to realize that it was put together like an Ikea cabinet. That meant it could be taken apart.

Sometimes, I'm such an idiot.

So I grabbed my power driver and a 5/32nd Allen Wrench and took it apart. The reassembly gave me a little trouble but I got it done.

Yea!

Mo' Yard Work

I don't think it would be going to far out on the hyperbolic ledge to say that we kicked ass today.

This is what the yard looked like yesterday.

Here we are after todays' work. I know that the side yard still looks like a barren wasteland but it is becoming a barren wasteland that we are controlling.

We got out into the yard about 1:00 and the goal was to get all the leafy, sticky, frondy crap into bags and off to the dump. By 2:30, we had to stop to allow a downpour to pass over us.

Once that was clear, we loaded everything into the truck and set off for the dump. We easily had 15 bags.

As we drove into the Waste to Energy Plant, there was a little fire at the entrance that was picking up momentum. I had my camera with me but did not have the presence of mind to use it.

It took about 20 minutes to get into the plant. It took about 15 minutes for us to unload. I should have taken a picture because I had my camera with me but did not have the presence of mind to use it.

From the dump, we went to Costco because Susan had seen a TV Stand there that she liked a lot more than the one she bought on line a few weeks ago. So we are going to take the loss on that table and use this much nicer one.

When we came out of Costco, it was just beginning to rain. We loaded the TV Stand box into the truck and headed for home. 

And that's where we are now. We have a good solid day of yard  work to be happy about and a rainy evening to enjoy instead of the month of heat we've had.   

Yard Work

The weather has finally calmed down  and cooled down to allow us to work in the yard. Susan pulled out the mower and took care of that job while I did some weed whacking.

Then we prepped ourselves for some messy shrub cleaning.

It was Phase Two of our cleaning out the leaves and droppings at the base of our Arbor Vitaes. I don't know how those things have been getting any water. There were so many years of leaves and bush detritus under them that the ground was totally covered by all the crap. I don't think very much water ever penetrated the ground.

Now they are clean and ready to receive water again. Tomorrow we will be cleaning up that row of leaves you see in the picture above and then we will lay down a new drip line for watering.

All this clean up means that there is going to be a dump run soon. Probably Monday.

I just love having a truck.

Here are some additional photographs of the shrubbery.

This job was long overdue. There were years of leaves under those poor bushes. It was really thick. I think we're going to see those things really start to thrive once we get the water on them.

Of course, we went to the pool once we finished.

Rain

The big news for today is that it has been raining. Not a lot but it's been enough that I'm not going to water today. The down side is that it is very humid out. Well...humid for Spokane. But the temperature is in the 80's today as opposed to the 103 mark we hit yesterday.

One of the things we got from Mom was this nice rocking chair that we wanted to put on the front porch. But first, we had to      Scumbag-Proof it from the Scumbags who slither onto peoples porches and take stuff.

I think we did a damn fine job. I placed an eye bolt into the corner of the front of the house and secured the chair with an eight foot chain. 

Eff U Scumbags!