Another big day.

So this afternoon after finishing the wedding I was working on and an engagement set I'd promised, I set to work on what I knew was going to be a big day. I was keeping an eye on the weather and this had promised to be the nicest day this week...and luckily I'd done enough weeding to make it work.

I ran out, rented a pick-up truck, and then hopped on over to Home Depot and rented a rototiller!!

When I got home, Dougie (who knew I'd left on said mission) had decided to attack the killer bamboo patch.

Arial view:



You can see where I cleared the ground over the past few days...and Dougie's butt.

Anastasia realized that there was more concrete than I'd thought and so moved some cinder blocks and dug that out a bit-- more room for the grill! (No pic tonight).

Apparently Dougie had used a rototiller before, so I let him get down with his bad self in that department:



Then Anastasia and I team-worked it up shoveling the loosened dirt through a screen and sifting out the roots and rock. (And giving me Michelle Obama arms)





Also making the piggy piggy greedy magpies happy:




They're so bold! At one point one sat right on the handle of the tiller while I was only about an arms length away. I also took both of the above pics with a wide-angle lens (aka, I was not far away). At one point one of them grabbed a big fat worm or grub and danced around for a full minute with it before it flew off! I has the foods now!!

Also in our tilling adventures we found:
-A license plate (too rusty to read)
-A radiator
-A buried pet cat or dog (at least 20 years buried, it was all tiny bones, sorry Fluffy)
-A leggo dog (unrelated)
-2 wrenches (same set)
-A hockey puck, a golf ball, a tennis ball, a baseball
-A sharp tooth (like a canine) at least an inch long.
-Lots and lots of chicken bones and oyster shells
-Several cans (no lables)
-A milk jug
-A hershey's syrup container
-Lots of metal bits (a hook, an old bike pedal (?), screws, nails)
-Lots of broken teracotta, bricks, roofing slates, etc.

We also found a brick wall that runs perpendicular to the fence adjoining the cement slab... The current theory is that there must have been an out-building of some kind there when a property was subdivided and it got taken down all but the slab which is now under part of a raised bed over here and must be below the neighbors' yards (which are about 4 feet higher than ours) too.



Tomorrow, I plant things! And bundle sticks! And try to find patio furniture and a portable dishwasher before I need to return the truck at 4!

Garden Demolition Continues Apace

I am to the point in my garden demolition where I'm really feeling that it's time to go get a rototiller and go to town so I can get my veggies in. It's exciting but for the fact that I also have to rent a truck to accomplish this.

This is the area where the garden will be:


but more recently:







I found this 2' (ish) by 3' (ish) hunk of patio when I was clearing out that daylily patch-- bet you didn't see that coming-- I certainly didn't.



It's got a heads up penny pressed into the cement. I tried to read the date on it but it was so covered in dirt (and oxidized) and it was dark when I got it all clear, but I think it dates our patio at 1960. I'll look again in the light tomorrow.

Anastasia thinks it's a great spot to put the grill once the area above and beyond it is cleared out more, but that's much lower on my priority list.

Getting into that area of the yard felt very garden-archeologic-- found an arc of bricks that paralleled the shape of that huge daylily patch (but smaller by about 2 feet) where I assume they were once planted ornamentally - boy have they taken over! I also found some parsley growing at the edge of the raised cinder-block bed (under the strawberry, creeper, grapevine, and knotwood that have taken over) as well as something that looks like a cottage rose, although it's not in bloom.

So my next big to-dos are:
-Till cleared garden bed.
-Line the edges with logs from the log pile and add some fill to make it a bit higher.
-Get my veggies in and then some!
-Take away the rest of the log pile (see appendix A)
-Clean up the other side of the fence and weed the cement.
-Find a table and some chairs so we can enjoy it!

Other house/garden tasks include:
-Pull everything out of the raised cinder block bed (where the evil bamboo stand is)
-Try to kill the evil bamboo.
-Weed the bed beside the driveway so that the peonies can actually do their thing next year.
-Pull everything that's coming up through cement.
-Put hostas in the bare spot in the front bed (move them from other parts of the yard)
-Try to train the ivy to grow up the house (I think it deserves it)
-Dig up all the mini-quinces that have dropped and spread around.
-Sprinkle some grass seed around.
-Convince the landlady to remove the 50 gallons of gas (ongoing project)
-Also convince her to mend the hole in the front step.

Does that sound ambitious?

I also think I want to get a wisteria and let it eat the porch. This house, to me, deserves to be swallowed up in vegetation in a prettier way than it has been.

Appendix A:

New House Introduction

Well we've moved back to Davis Square and are somewhat happy to have an absentee landlady who will let us do whatever we want inside and out. The down side is that she doesn't do anything, hasn't done anything in a while, and previous tenants haven't done much either.

Right now, we're watching Life After People and I feel like our back yard is definitely a taste of it.

Here's a bit of a tour of the exterior:

Front of the house-- a bunch of those bushes have been cut haphazardly-- have thick stumps in the middle that the branches are stemming from.

(like so:)


Beside the driveway:

Peonies, among other things, being choked out by Evil Evil Japanese Knotwood and somewhat evil Concord Grape.


Other side of the driveway...two scrawny pansies.


Top of the drive- knotwood jungle. That stand is at least 10 feet tall.


Random back yard stuff.


Back fence.


Gertie among the pots.


This is a section we're working on clearing right now.


I pulled this down this morning.

We clearly have our work cut out for us. I got some loppers, gloves, and some grass seed and some new plants in addition to the seedlings and seeds I already have.