It probably sounds a little cliche', but I think I'm ready to go back to work to get some rest. Physical rest, anyway. This week, Spring Break, has been a very productive week for us. There are so many things in the yard that have been neglected since last fall. It was time to knock out some of those tasks or face them at the beginning of summer by when they would have been even bigger jobs. So, this post is an attempt to log, in no particular order, the things accomplished this week.
Prepped the garden (turned the soil, pulled the grass, added compost).
Planted tomatoes and peppers.
Mulched the new garden plants.
Pulled weeds and grass from flower beds and pruned out dead plants.
Dug out two huge pampas grass stumps, divided them into 25 smaller plants and replanted all the new ones.
Cut down other pampas grass with chain saw.
Spread 18 bags of mulch in flower beds.
Dug post holes and built a new 16-foot split-rail fence.
Dug out rose bush and transplanted to grow on split-rail fence.
Pruned all other rose bushes.
Loaded pickup with cut limbs, lumber, etc. and hauled to landfill...twice.
Cut down 4 shrubs in front flower beds.
(Side story: The biggest shrubs in the front flower bed have never been our favorites, but they're what we have, so we've lived with them. The two biggest, by the front doorway, had grown big enough to cover the house number, and pruning them back was not going to be a very attractive option. So, we just decided to take them out completely. They, and others, suffered some leaf damage during all the ice and snow this winter, and some of the more attractive shrubs were beginning to fill in better, so we decided to take out more than just the two largest. So, I got my chainsaw, put on the work gloves and got down on my knees and started cutting. I cut the lower limbs out of the first one, then immediately made a cross cut at the base of the trunk and took that sucker out all at once. I stood up, pulled the whole shrub out and stood back to admire my work only to realize I'd just cut down the wrong bush! We had planned to take out 3, not 4. Oh well. It was ugly, too!)
Cleaned out leaves and dead grass from front flower beds.
Mowed and collected grass clippings.
It was good to get outside and get some fresh air and use muscles that have been dormant for a while, but now I'm ready to get back to the mental labor of teaching calculus. I thinking doing these major jobs this week will make coming home in the afternoons and doing a few minor jobs much more manageable and enjoyable.
My blog title "Spring Broke" is not meant to imply anything's broken, it's just a past tense thing, as in "Spring Break has come to an end."
