Yard Work Day

Today was yard work day. At 9 a.m. we went out and began mowing, deweeding, running from bees, attacking bees with rakes, scooping up very old mulch that should have been taken up last year. Good times.

Our hope is to lay down grass over a portion of the area that we cleared next to the driveway. That way we don’t have to worry about keeping up with landscaping of any kind.

We have a patch next to the house that we was originally covered with ivy. Last year we cleared out the ivy and laid down rubber mulch – which proceeded to get blown everywhere and didn’t stay in place. So, we are going to scoop up the mulch and bag it (for potetnial future use) and till that land to prep it for sod. Then I’ll buy a cheap bench and bird bath and voila – ambience.

Once we get the rest of the mulch up from the other side of our house we’ll bring in pine straw to cover the dirt. We debated between getting mulch and getting straw, and straw won out in the end. We don’t have any flower beds – just shrubs. Our neighbor (an avid gardener) told us that if we don’t intend to plant flowers, then pine straw would be best for the shrubs.

She also said that we could use some of her mulch that was delivered, and I told Denis that we could always use that in the back if we can get the weeds cleared out back there too. The problem is that we have about a dozen wood bees in the back who regularly patrol our backyard. I know they don’t usually sting, but those are big hearty suckers and I’d prefer not to take any chances. But if we can at least DUMP the mulch in the back, when the bees die out in early June we can then spread it out.

Later today we’ll be heading out to the last day of a festival down in Rock Hill. They are having a BBQ sale, a kids carnival and later tonight some fireworks (that we may or may not go back for).