With both of us being sick lately, it’s been about three weeks since we’ve done any real work in the back yard. It needed it: both lawns were getting tangled, the weeds in the back were getting slightly out of control and the yard just generally needed some workin’ put on it.
Since moving to California, mowing the lawn has become my job. I don’t mind, at least while the weather is so nice. Maybe it’s all the years that I’ve spent making a living at a computer keyboard, but I enjoy getting out and doing some good, productive manual labor. They call it “honest work” for a reason – just getting out there in your yard with the shovel to root up large weed patches is a clean, fair way to spend a morning. You can feel it in your muscles, in your bones: it’s good work.
Kristi’s never been particularly happy with the yard, but with more than one set of hands on it, there’s a lot we can do with it. Stripping down the deep-rooted weeds was an important first step. A couple of sprinkler heads needed replacing; the sprinkler system was one of the many things installed badly by the last owners of the house, so we’ll eventually have to rip it out and put it in right. The grass needs to be replaced with better sod and the patio needs to be taken up and rebuilt. Even so, we have a wonderful orange tree and we’ve got some rose bushes planted for the spring, and when the lawn’s cut short you can see the real potential for the yard.
While we were out pulling weeds this morning, Kristi’s parents Don and Kathy came by to help replace a sprinkler head (we didn’t have the right tool) and dig up and move around the landscape. Kathy and I plan to paint the side wall of the yard enclosure in March, and then hopefully sometime this year we’ll be able to seriously consider starting work on the sprinkers. All depends on where the money is; we’ve got a nice long list of financial priorities for 2008.
It’s been a good day. Both of us feel like our limbs are made of rubber, but Tuck hasn’t yet figured out how to hack his way around the newly-working dog door. So it all balances out.