Yard Cleanup Time

Sometimes things work out and run smoothly and sometimes Murphy plays his dirty tricks. We missed most of the nice days in April to work in the yard because of this stomach flu we had. You just don’t feel like doing anything because a cold/flu leaves you tired, and this was a bad one.  I was weak and listless. Monday was a nice day outside, not overly warm, so my wife and I decided to tackle the dead willow branches that were littering the property, mainly under the trees on the perimeter of our property. We picked up the larger ones and raked the smaller branches. Then we transported them onto my garden for burning. There is a burning ban in effect right now because of the dry weather conditions, so we have to wait until that is lifted.

We only worked until about 1:00 o’clock, because it started raining in the afternoon, which was okay. We were tired and exhausted and couldn’t have done much more anyway.

Tuesday morning I decided to load all the bags that were filled with grass (we used them on our field to catch the snow in the winter) into my van. Another grueling job when you’re not feeling well.   I managed to load them into the van, all 75 of them, after taking a rest every ten minutes. Then I jumped into the van to take them to the dump for recycling. That was my intention. My plan didn’t work out. I turned the key but the van wouldn’t start.  I believe I flooded it. It is quite finicky these days. I didn’t drive it much last year for that reason. I was afraid to go anywhere with it, because it may not start again. It is an old van (1995). I keep it only as a convenient second vehicle to go fishing with and to take the odd trip to the dump. It needs a tune-up, but I don’t want to put any money into it because I’m planning to replace it with another vehicle.

Like I said, good old Murphy of Murphy’s Law played his hand again. I had lunch and tried again a couple of hours later. Lo and behold, the van started, but now I was afraid to shut if off. I drove to the dump and emptied the grass onto the recycling pile. I kept the van running all that time. It took me 45 minutes to open all the plastic bags and empty them. You can’t leave the plastic bags there, because they are not biodegradable. Then I was afraid I might run out of gas. Fortunately, everything worked out okay. In the afternoon, we still finished picking up the rest of the fallen branches, so the day wasn’t lost and Murphy didn’t win…this time.

Today I raked the grass and then cut and bagged the dead grass. It is always a messy job. It was dry and the dust was everywhere. I wear a mask and goggles. It is the only way to survive without getting coughing spells and tiny grass pieces into your eyes. I went through all those things over the years. The whole job took me six hours: two hours of raking and four hours of cutting and picking up the grass and bagging it. Yesterday I bought biodegradable paper bags from Costco. They cost about 50 cents per bag. The bags are large and I filled only 19 bags. It was difficult to empty the grass catchers into the paper bags, because the opening is not large enough to insert the catcher-bags from the lawn tractor into the paper bags. When I use plastic bags I can do that and emptying the grass into them is simpler. I managed to get the job done and now all I have to do is just throw the bags out of the van at the dump; a job that will take maybe ten minutes, if that. It will be worth the 10 bucks the bags cost me.

It was windy all day and hot. I believe it was around 25 Celsius. We are supposed to get some rain tonight and we need it. Everything is super dry. We’ve had a number of grass fires already, including a few houses that burnt down. This is a dangerous time of the year

Amazing how green the grass already is and the leaves are appearing on many trees. I also saw a few dandelion flowers already on the lawn. On Tuesday I spotted the odd little Lady bug hiding among the leaves on the ground.  The Robins, the juncos, and the Woodpeckers have moved on. Now we have only the usual birds in the feeders and on the lawn, those that stay loyal to us all summer. They are all welcome and we enjoy them, even the crows.