Oops!

Well, I tried to be a responsible and normal home owner and go out and weed in my flowerbeds Saturday morning before the rain started.  I think I got going about 8 or 8:30 and quit at 11 when the drenching rains had been going for about a half hour.  The result- my yard looks much better but I am not doing so well.  In fact, it's rather painful to move, and I'm told it's painful to watch me move.  Sitting is painful, walking is painful, in fact, the only thing that is not painful is remaining absolutely still in a mostly prone position.  However, life doesn't really function in a static prone position so I'm going my best to be as still as possible while still going about my regular work day.  I delayed coming to work until noon and I've asked for a few favors so that I don't have to move so much but I still have to move.  I guess, the best way to look at it is that, as long as I can move and I can feel pain, I'm better off that some others.  Still, I would really like to be able to do normal life functions without paying for it for a week or more afterwords.

The impetus of all of this is that I have invited the whole famdamly over for a BBQ on the 27th.  None have seen my house yet.  I have an aunt that is turning 60 and my parents celebrated their 45th wedding anniversary without notice last month.  So it's as good a reason as any to celebrate.  I'd like the house to look as good as possible but I obviously have some limitations.  I'm at the point where I am seeing all the work that needs to be done to spiff the place up but I'm not financially able to do a majority of it.  I'm hoping my family is still at the "Oh what a cute little house" stage when they come.

As I was working around, I discovered several more things that fall in the slapdashery of the former owners.  The pond enclosure is made up of cinder blocks but upon closer inspection, I discovered that those blocks are simply set together in stacks, there is no over lap. So it will eventually fall and there isn't anything I can do to fix it without doing a lot of damage to the structure.  I climbed over the hot tub to get to the wasted space behind the lattice work.  It is, of course, grown over with vetch and other noxious weeds- I didn't even try to fix that.  It needs some black plastic and a load of rock, I think.  The space between the lattice and the fence  has blackberry bush bases at least 2 inches across that have simply been cut down and not pulled out.  I pulled what I could but at that point they are pretty far beyond my ability to pull with a trowel.  I cut them down and pulled up the runners.  They are mixed in with the grape (which has a huge base UNDER the porch), ivy, and, I think, honeysuckle, which makes getting to them even more difficult.  At this point I was dealing with torrential rain so I did the best I could to get what I could and called it good.  It will need more work in the near future I'm sure.  I cut back the ivy a bit but only to keep it out of the cinder block and off the ground.  It also needs more work.

I have been steadily working on pulling out the ornamental nuance grass that was planted in the front corner.  In this case I am blessing him for having put down the volcanic rock and weed barrier because this stuff runs like no one's business.  At least the barrier keeps it at the surface where I can pull up thick mats of it at a time.  I still have several hours worth of work getting the remainder out but I'm slowly pushing it back to just the corner of the yard instead of running down the flowerbeds on each side.

I also had all manner of weeds to pull out from around the pond.  Fortunately, the sand and gravel there makes it fairly easy.  I really want to get the water flowing in the pond again.  There must have been a problem, because he routed the running water to a fountain instead of through the old fashion handle pump mouth where it originally seemed to be set to flow from down the steps into the pond.  I know next to nothing about this sort of stuff though so I have no idea how to fix it.

There really does seem to be a lifetime worth of work to be done.  *sigh*  I guess they were right when they said "Welcome to your new hobby!"

Camera works pretty well....