ohhhh Yard Maintenance

You may recall that D broke up the concrete in the side yard because it had heaved into an angle unhelpful to the house.  Unhelpful in that it sluiced all rainwater right into the side of the house where it leaked into our basement.  The natural lay of the land has all the yards on a gradual hillside slope, and we get all the water from the neighbor's yard rushing towards ours, aimed right at our house.

We dug a trench and laid a pipe for drainage.  It has truly helped for all but the heaviest rains.  We usually don't have water on the north side of the basement anymore. 

In Process

Giant pile of spiders.  I mean rocks.

We hauled away two carloads of the bigger chunks, but there remained a sizeable, unsightly rock pile at the corner of the house. 

And so it was, for a few months.  Because we felt we'd done enough for awhile.

 Little did I know, the pile of rocks was eating away at my husband's sanity. I had no idea the sight of it so offended him.  But it seemed to speak to him, saying nasty things.  "Your yard looks awful."  And such.

Frankly, I hadn't heard a thing. 

So on Sunday the pile of concrete fragments and bricks were moved armful by heavy armful out of the yard.

And there were spiders.  There were ugly brown spiders.  And they tried to touch me.  I had the heebie-jeebies in a serious way.  And in disturbing the pile we also displaced scores, if not hundreds of little centipedes and pillbugs and all manner of creatures. 

Basically an entire ecosystem was destroyed for aesthetic purposes. 

Worth it.



and we made the pavers uniform, but clearly the alignment is all wonky...



My back is killing me. 

And so the offense has been removed.  Well, that one brick is still there to cover a hole that looks suspiciously like a snake hole.  The other brick is there to keep him company. 

Yeah, but for now, this spot is nekkid

As you can see, we managed to kill all the grass under the concrete pile.  But it doesn't matter,

the grass seed we laid in the fall has given us supergrass around the pavers.  It'll be back in no time.

I also transplanted coral bells from the side bed (formerly the den of vine orgies), where they were constantly getting trampled by the dog anyway.  They cheer up the spot where we buried Cricket.  Though the thought that I might disturb her remains gave me the heebie-jeebies, so I was careful to dig as far as I could from where I remembered her to be.  The photos I took this morning turned out awkward, so I'll post some improved shots later. 

Speaking of coral bells, I planted a line of coral bells at the side of the house after the drainage pipe was laid last fall. 



 



Last Fall





Today

  

I think they survived the winter pretty well, and they filled out quite nicely.  Admittedly this winter was crazy mild.  Even so, it gives them a leg up.  Now they'll be well established for real winter next year.  




Shazaam

  Most astonishing though, are the coral bells that I put in planters on the rickety deck. 
Remember when they froze solid? 

Crispy Heuchera

This leafy fella is indestructible.  

Soon our flowers for the front garden arrive.  Cannot wait!

After All, Rule #1 is Cardio

I trained dog-less Saturday morning. (he got walkies afterward) 

I got up in the morning (hooray!) and jog-walked, starting out slowly, as several sources have advised me.  I find its so hard to catch my breath.  The internet (RunnersWorld, etc.) tells me this is because I need to slow my pace.  This is ...  I mean... I can't go any slower, my pace is laughable as it is. 

It just highlights how out of shape I am, I guess.  This is a serious flaw to any survival plan.  After all, we have all been taught that Rule #1 is Cardio. 

Other keen wisdom includes public restroom avoidance. 

If you are or have been a sedentary person, have you ever tried to start a running regimen?  Did you have frustrating early returns?  Were you totally embarrassed that the cars passing by could see your strange-gaited gallop?  Did you feel awkward about running in pajamas because you don't own running clothing?  Ladies, are you stymied by the prohibitively high cost of supportive sports bras?  (If you score higher than a B, the answer is yes.  And a lady has got to support her chesticles.  Lest in elder years she ends up looking like she taped two socks filled with quarters to her chest)

And so this is not only exercise, but in these the early days it is also an exercise in humility for me. 

I was so embarrassed about my performance that I wasn't sure I wanted to document it EVER.  Yet out of curiousity I went to Googlemaps and meticulously plotted the macrame-like route I jog/walked.  Hot damn, there and back again is one mile.  A mile!  I was shooting for manageable, and got a mile!  Of course Googlemaps tells me that I shall have been able to walk it in 20 minutes.  psh.  yeah.  If it were flat.  And... not so ... far. 

I mentioned that this past weekend would be a project weekend, and so it was.  I was quite proud of what D and my dad accomplished in a day and a half.  (I had projects of my own, though they didn't finish up in that time, so I'm not so proud of what I actually accomplished) 

Sunday morning was nice weather, but instead of jogging I (we, actually) had breakfast outside on the deck with my parents and wrestled with Bobby and Cricket as they crawled all over everything including us.  I thought I would take "a day of rest" from training on Sunday, as I was (mentally) worn a little thin.  I did begin a strength-training regimen consisting of some girl-pushups (which differ from boy pushups in that wimpy girls do them but buff girls and boys do not do them because they lack dignity) for obstacle course preparation.  I would begin anew on Monday. 

But my "day of rest" has come around to bite me in the arse.  Torrential downpour and thundering (and dog barking) woke me at around 330 this morning.  Four inches of rain fell in places around the city, flash flooding was reported in list-form on the news, and we once again have water intruding into our basement, the most severe incursion to date.   Worst was the north wall, the problem that we thought had been fixed.  The drainage pipes in the trench had been overwhelmed in the biggest rain of the year. 

So much work has been done to avoid this very thing, it doesn't seem fair.  Not sure what we'll do next.  I have lots of photos to post about the work that took place this weekend.  When I said torrential, I meant it.  It was the pelting kind of rain that descended in sheets.  I know, because I stood outside in it with the dog.  He thanked me by leaping onto one and then the other couch, muddy and wet.  That's gratitude.  Anyway, I'm sure there would have been more water if the work hadn't been done, but I can't help but feel a tad defeated.  Like it was all for naught (naught?  nought?  nougat?).

It's supposed to pour again tonight.  So I won't have time to jog, only to whisk the dog out, bring him in, feed him, and give him a brisk walk.  D But I will try to shake things up, thanks to uncooperative weather.  Stationary bike in basement.  A cardio alternative. 

• Cardio shirt is from Hot Topic, but has long since sold out, sadly.

Trench: Before & After

Bobby the border collie and I got to explore the backyard yesterday, and it was just fascinating (for him).  He's got a lot of new stimuli, to say nothing of the fact that the replacement gate isn't in the ground yet so I have him on a leash in the yard and in the house (as advised by the Leerburg guy).  I dropped the leash last night in the house, and he was just fine.  I'll keep it on him for the first week anyway, just in case one of the cats streak by him and the dog lunges at him.   But we're really excited about Bobby and how he's reacting to the cats, inside and out. 

Bobby and Cricket ran into each other right away.  Bobby shows no aggression.  Curiousity in spades, and he really wants to play with her (herd her, perhaps).  Cricket has taken to the dog pretty well;  she played in the grass yesterday while I tried to work with Bobby on some obedience training (oy vay).  Max and Yuuki don't panic the way they did in the presence of Jack the puppy.  Jack would enter the room and they would immediately climb as far off of the floor as they were able.  With Bobby, Max is alert but unwary, and he walks about and lays around on the floor as he normally would.  Yuuki isn't spending a lot of time on the floor.  But, yesterday he sat on a bench and Bobby went and sat down on the floor next to him.  In boxing range for Yuuki, but Yuuki didn't thwap him, nor growl, nor get up and leave.  He was resigned.  D and I were gleeful.    

Anyway, it's been busy!  I hadn't had time to show you the side of the house. 

After the trench was done

We finished the drainage trench and filled it in, tried to make tidy.  We hadn't had time for anything else though, so after it rained it looked like this. 

Before : Welcome to our mudhole

It looked absolutely gross after a few days of rain.  When the rain finally let up, I finally had the opportunity to do something I'd been wanting to do.  

After : heuchera bed

Hm.  Should have taken a tighter shot.  

oh well. 

No longer a trench and dirt, it's now a proper home for the heuchera that have been living on the deck for an absurdly long time.  A month or more since I bought them from the greenhouse (August 19th).  They look a tad more sparse now than they did when I bought them, but at least they're in the ground now.  I ran out of mulch, and may need to put a bit more earth around some of them.  But I couldn't finish the bed because the fence post needs to be planted in this corner.  And soon.  I'd like to let doggie run free. 

Though we we warned by the humane society that Bobby may jump the fence. 

In the Trenches: Progress

In the beginning, this was the side of the house.  The sidewalk had heaved upward, creating a stupid, funhouse-style tilt. 

Before

After D smashed all the concrete

Drainage trench dug, dirt added, gravel on top of drainage pipe, fence missing

So we bought two red brick paving squares, wanting to see how we would like the look of a series of stepping stones as a concrete replacement.  I like them well enough.  We could just run to Lowe's and round out the space with five red brick pavers.  But we have already have all of these stones and bricks and rocks in the yard, courtesy of all of the owners before us who just piled them up and left them and/or buried them for us to find like treasure.  Yes, I am cheap, but also I can't abide the idea that they might end up going to waste, unable to fulfill their stony destiny. 

I'm also cheap.

Paver template

So I started to heft some of the pre-existing stone finds and mix and mess them up with the red brick pavers.  This is the pattern I thought wouldn't be bad.  I wanted to dig the dirt up and see what they would look like with just a half inch or so protruding from the ground (IE not enough sticking out to trip over, but enough so that the dirt won't continually overtake them).  But we haven't leveled it yet, so I'll have to be patient.  I think I'll end up with 2-1-3-1-2, rather than the 2-1-2-1-2 you see in the photo above.  The spacing's just not right.  Of course the surface isn't leveled yet.  I have just enough white sandstone bricks to do that.  Hopefully I don't drop one.  Fingers crossed.

In the meantime, the rest of the trench is getting dug and leveled.  This is not fun work.  This is what it looked like before.  With stumps. 

Pre-Trench

D ripped the stumps out with his spite and sheer manliness, or so he told me

This is what the space looks like now, with the drainage pipe half in and half out of the whole.  It's connected in a tunnel we made underneath the sidewalk in front of the side door.  We leveled this part of the trench, but....

This was the easy part

The trench curves underneath the sidewalk.  This is the second under-sidewalk-drain-tunnel that has been dug on the side of the house.   The earth is packed clay and roots, and its been terrible.  We began with the shovel, and then progressed with maddening slowness by twirling a trowel in the hole, but progress has become so abysmal that D ended up using the prybar to desperately try to scrape deeper and deeper under the sidewalk. I myself tried sinking the trowel into the clay and tapping it with the sledgehammer to get some penetration.  It's been slow going, and knuckle-scraping.

tunneling

It seems that we've been stymied by this ridiculously huge root.  Which is two car lengths away from the nearest tree, and yet very shallow.  What is it doing here?!  We've yet to connect the two sides of the tunnel because we think the root curves around and is blocking any progress forward with the trowel.  D attacked it with a number of approaches and tools, even bent his hardened steel breaker bar, to no avail.  We gave up Sunday evening when the bugs chased us indoors. 

Enter your favorite wurty-durd here

 While we worked, one of the neighbors popped over to let us know that she was living underneath our porch.  Which is fine.  Ideal, really.

Startled the crap out of me, For a moment I thought she was Yuuki

I take this to mean no vermin under the deck.  She's totally tame, I clucked my tongue at her and she popped up like a daisy and rubber her face into my hand.  And the food I set there?  No real interest. 

Between the cat under the porch and the lazarus lizards in the front, I think we're all set!

Right in front of the solar light.  See him?  They're tough to photograph!

D's Side Yard Makeover : Trenching Part 1

This weekend felt quite abbreviated.  Saturday I had to work with the boss and a room full of other Japanese folks to vet a presentation they had to give in Brazil this morning.  See, being a grammar nazi can be beneficial in one's professional life. 

Anyway, I came home and D was excited to show me what he had accomplished for the last two days in the yard.  The first thing is the side bed.  This is a before photo.  It has since been cleared of much debris and many bricks have been dug up.  It no longer looks quite so ill-kept.  But notice the ancient laundry line pole in the bed (left side of bed). 

Before: With laundry-line pole

 This is what it looks like now.  Like all the random bricks in the back there?  We dug those up.  Neat, huh?



Where'd it go?



Down the rabbit hole?



There it is

This thing has plagued D's mind for weeks.  He dug and dug while I pulled dead vines and roots out of the side bed, and still it didn't come out.  He broke through a layer of concrete triumphantly, only to discover that there was another layer of concrete beneath it.  See the different levels of discoloration?  Not a trendy ombre finish.  It's the level of weathering from the exposed end to the middle (buried in dirt) to the shiny end that was embedded in concrete, to the second concrete layer (still present).  

D was very proud.

He had also pulled out the rickety gate to the back yard, and the gate-poles.



This was our gate.



The earth that had settled over time had moved the poles too much for the gate to shut anymore, so it was kind of pointless anyway.  When Jack the puppy was with us, we'd had to block up the gap with sandstone bricks (of which we have a few, trust me).   We'll need to get the new gate in before we bust Bob the Dog out of Prison. 

So this is the view I came home to Saturday.  This is the side of the house.  D has managed to rip up all of the stumps from the side of the house too, which is amazing.  They look sci fi.  We should keep them as lawn sculptures.  Anyway, you can see by the drainage pipe and the dirt everywhere that this has been a pretty physical job.  Props to my husband.  He broke two shovels Saturday.  True story.  One of them was abused.  One of them snapped when D gave it a stern look.  But Lowe's was good about taking it back.  We are going to have a fantastic relationship with their Returns Department before this is all through. 

Trenching Project : Halfway-ish



 (Like D's jammies?)     

This is after work was done for the day, Saturday.   

The drainage pipe for the downspout, he discovered, actually went nowhere.  The pipe likely collapsed underground somewhere, so all of the water from the gutters was just getting dumped onto the side of the house.  He has two drainage pipes now in the trench (yes, only one is pictured here).  One with holes for water to seep into from the yard, because water wants to drain toward the house because of the natural slope of our entire neighborhood.  The other pipe is solid for draining the gutters.  They meet in a Y-attachment and then go under the concrete in front of the door (which D carved out with a shovel, and then a trowel). 

We spent Sunday morning putting stones on top of the pipe with holes, which we will cover with dirt.  We bought the wrong kind of gravel, so I had to sift out smaller pebbles and dust and put only larger stones on top of the pipe, so that the pipe doesn't clog.  Fingers crossed.  We just need to finish the trench now.  Yes, that's all.  It's about halfway done.  And then lay the drainage pipe in there, cover it up.  And cross our fingers.   D's planning to work on the trench tonight.  Of course, even when we get the trench dug at the side of the house and lay the pipe and bury it, we still have to continue the trench all the way to where we want it to drain, out by the street.  ... There's shrubs and a giant tree.   Not sure about that part of the project, but I think it'll involve roots, and a lot of swearing. 

   We also got rid of half of the concrete rubble, although actually the pile looks exactly the same size to both of us.  But I was there.  I hefted rocks. 

And we had an adventure at the Habitat for Humanity Re-Store.  This place is awesome.  We picked up a giant carpet remnant and a brand new rug, for a total of around 35 bucks.  Both to cover the basement floor.  And we bought an external light fixture for the side door because the one we have is gross and doesn't function. Fifteen bucks.  The Re-Store is a great place to bargain hunt.  Definitely going back. 

Still haven't gotten around to posting the Asbestos-Abated basement yet, have I?  No, I'm not a tease, I just haven't had time to put it together yet.  We'll be painting the floor this week, either in a floor sealant or an epoxy.  We just don't know what to do about that.  But we just want to get it done at this point.  The clutter is driving us nuts.

And to reward ourselves, this Saturday is the Dayton Ale Fest.  My hubby has definitely earned a few drinks for all his manly endeavors lately.