Yesterday I started something at the old house that kept me from dog poop and laundry, here.
The chimney guy came to look at a problem which had been helped along by a variegated ivy that had looked pretty as it grew, but became not so pretty as I tried to tear it down. As I was doing that, I decided… in for a penny, in for a pound– might as well try to boost the street appeal a scosche (no mean feat in that house, as the poor dear is an architecturally impaired 1964 tract house) and did some weeding/edging/spreading of beauty bark.
Back in the summer my mom, who’s been really really super about helping in the yard, for the most part, came over to look after the dogs when we went to Chicago. And she unloaded about a ton of scalloped-edge edging concrete, and lined our cool brick walkways, the driveway, about a third of the yard, and a few — but not all– of the garden beds.
I was mortified, but because she’s been so helpful, I tried to put on a “thanks! (but you shouldn’t have)” face about it.
Yesterday gave me the perfect opportunity to move out all the edging, move some of it down the hill to the old house, and get started on thinking about spring.
Today was dog-poop-a-palooza, and I started raking the back yard, here.
I hate picking up dog poop, really I do, but today was an odd sort of meditation-of-grounds; picking up a couple of months of shit allowed me to really assess every square inch of yard, to see where the blackberry vines will volunteer unless drastic measures are taken, to see the hardscaping of the yard, to see signs of spring in the air (yay! It looks like I may have some bulbs coming up!!) Okay, so I have no idea what I’ll do with the pounds and pounds of poop (I hate to think of the landfill being 1/2 Bill and Tank-waste, but is there any other solution? Build a little doggy-septic tank??)
Tomorrow I’ll complete raking, front and back, take pix, and wait to see what gifts the spring will bring… (and probably, doubtless, have more poop to scoop…)
