i feel like this is turning into a photo blog. jeez.
oh, by the way, the N&O blogwatch picked up my snake video from yesterday. i feel famous... in a triangle-wide kind of way.
so, yes. last night i bought, cut, and put down black plastic on the messy, overgrown bed at the back of the yard. the most difficult part of the process was finding enough heavy things to weight it down. i have a feeling those flower pots are not going to be ideal.
the liriope that i bought last weekend at the farmer's market will go along the right side of this semi-circle. the bed used to be totally lined with this grass, but half of it died off. i intended to start planting it last night, but...
after i got the plastic down, i weeded the area in preparation of planting the grass and --lo and behold-- found more brick border!
these discoveries are exciting, but jezus they're a lot of work. uncovering that brick from years and years of overgrowth is difficult. a 2 foot area took long enough that i didn't have time to plant the grass.
it's been so humid lately, too, that i feel like i'm just slogging through the work. it's painful. the sweat, the heat... ugh.
also, another reason i hate yard work so much is the mosquitoes. working in the yard after i come home from work is ridiculous. i detest wearing bug spray, so i'm really causing myself more hassle than i need to... but those lotions and sprays are SO GROSS. i feel like a disgusting slimeball just 2 minutes after applying it. ick.
i do have one less thing to do in the yard now, though... TROSA came and mowed the yard this morning. yay!
Posted by xta at June 7, 2005 10:44 AM | TrackBackhow are you weeding out the brick areas? you could use a weed eater to get down pretty far on those, might be easier.
Posted by: lisa at June 7, 2005 11:48 AMalong the patio i've been using a weed-whacker. i didn't have the energy to get it plugged in last night, though, so i just used my hands. :-)
while doing this, we go through a *lot* of that plastic twine stuff inside the spool of the weed-whacker. i'm constantly reloading that thing.
Posted by: christa at June 7, 2005 12:47 PMWhen you get tired of mosquitoes come to Jerusalem. We have very few. Jerusalem is on the border of a desert. It's basically dry here for 8 months out of the year. The nights are cool. The days are HOT! 30 degrees C today! The humidity is around 20 percent or something normally. Sometimes it's so dry it hurts your nose. You have to drink water all the time!
Posted by: John Boy at June 7, 2005 12:47 PMNo skeeters here on Southern California either. I'm writing to you from a breezy cafe with free wireless, just blocks from the Pacific Ocean, out the window I see palm trees....come, join us... oh, and congrats on your N&O Blogwatch nod. I feel famous just knowing you and subscribing to your feed. And glad I now live far from that snake-infested land of seething humidity.
Posted by: Penny Richards at June 7, 2005 01:13 PMI used an ice chipper to uncover bricks in our yard a couple of weeks ago - a small, flat and SHARP piece of steel mounted on the end of a 4-foot rod (4-foot rod - *snik*).
worked like a charm! except for the occasional jarring impact from encountering a brick that protruded farther than its neighbor....
Posted by: at June 7, 2005 04:02 PManother interesting possible use of power tools to uncover the brick... i was carefully inspecting the hose and nozzle aisle at Big Home Improvement Store Code Blue today, and they've got nozzles that basically turn your normal garden hose into a sort of power washer, for about 89 cents.
of course, the hurricaine that appears to be moving past my office building right now might have a similar effect if it reaches durham. yeesh.
Posted by: lisa at June 7, 2005 04:59 PM