dog poop and dead squirrel
it was, as some have already noted, a gorgeous weekend in our little slice of the midwest. the first weekend in November, and I was outside in a t-shirt with no jacket, and David was talking about wearing shorts. he didn't actually wear shorts, because it was still cold inside the house. but the sun was warm, and goodness, church was downright hot and stuffy on Sunday morning.
since it was so damnably beautiful this weekend, I had no excuse whatsoever not to do yard work. so I did. and you know how you start one thing and it just kind of turns into other things? well, that's kind of what happened.
first, I cleaned up the dog poop in the yard, which I've been lax about, unfortunately. we switched Randy's food again somewhat recently, and this one is working even worse for him than the previous one. still massively horrendous gas, but with this new food, puddles of poop. NOT fun to clean up. this is the food that worked really well for Andy, so I'm kinda disappointed, but hey, every dog is different. anyhow, we're switching him back to the other food at least temporarily. in the meantime, poop soup. hey! can I say poop one more time? apparently so.
after that, I remembered that Randy needed a B-A-T-H. and it was a gorgeous and warm day, so that's what we did. but first I brushed him well, because he was a shedding monster and I didn't want that much dog hair in the bathtub. now we have a somewhat clean (though furry) yard, a clean dog, and we washed his blankets. clean dog on clean blankets. it's a marvelous thing. he also got his toenails trimmed and his teeth brushed on Sunday morning. it was a Randy grooming extravaganza!!
after that, what I really wanted to work on was the front yard, so that's where I went. the leaves needed to be picked up and the lawn mowed one more time this season. I just do both at the same time and mow the leaves. we have two trees that have very small leaves, so it works okay, except for the part where our yard waste bin got full. really full. I packed as much in there as I could, but figured climbing inside and stomping on the stuff would likely be dangerous.
this was in part because I thought, hey, I'm here working anyway. I should rake up the dead hosta leaves along the side of the house. so I did that, which turned out to be big bunch of stuff because under the dead hosta leaves was a thick mat of pine needles from our neighbor's dead tree. the vast majority of the needles are gone now, leaving a barren skeleton of a tree, so I'm hoping we will soon be done with pine needle mess.
then I thought, hey, I haven't trimmed or mowed in the flower bed under the tree all summer, really, so I probably should work on that. which I did. I raked through it and then mowed everything down. and then I thought, hey, I keep meaning to trim around the base of the tulip tree, to make it easier to mow. so I got out the lopper and had at it.
discovered our tulip tree has some sort of bug infestation. I suppose I should assume it's termites. note to self: have to call someone to look at it. don't want 1) the tree to die, or 2) the termites to migrate to the house.
mowed and mowed and mowed some more. stuffed as much stuff as I could in the Yardy. mow, mow, mo--YOW! that's a dead squirrel!
it was in the grass at the food of the tree near the street, right on the property line. dagnabbit. if it had been over farther, I would have let our neighbor Justin worry about it. obviously hadn't been there very long, either. so I had David find a plastic bag, and had the dubious pleasure of picking up yet another dead rodent. blechy.
mow, mow, mow. lots of leaves. when all was said and done, I didn't have enough room in the Yardy to mow Joe's yard, unfortunately. I also couldn't get the Yardy back up our hill. so I ended up pushing it over to the curb in front of Joe's house. he and Brent [on the corner] share a driveway, since their houses don't have access to the alley. that's where they put their trash, recycle, and Yardies.
then I went back inside, as the darkness fell, and crashed. David made me dinner, because he's awesome that way.
Sunday was another beautiful day, but I didn't do any more yard work, because I had nowhere to put the clippings. sure, sure. actually, I could have just mulched the grass in the back yard and left the clippings. I just didn't want to.
since it was so damnably beautiful this weekend, I had no excuse whatsoever not to do yard work. so I did. and you know how you start one thing and it just kind of turns into other things? well, that's kind of what happened.
first, I cleaned up the dog poop in the yard, which I've been lax about, unfortunately. we switched Randy's food again somewhat recently, and this one is working even worse for him than the previous one. still massively horrendous gas, but with this new food, puddles of poop. NOT fun to clean up. this is the food that worked really well for Andy, so I'm kinda disappointed, but hey, every dog is different. anyhow, we're switching him back to the other food at least temporarily. in the meantime, poop soup. hey! can I say poop one more time? apparently so.
after that, I remembered that Randy needed a B-A-T-H. and it was a gorgeous and warm day, so that's what we did. but first I brushed him well, because he was a shedding monster and I didn't want that much dog hair in the bathtub. now we have a somewhat clean (though furry) yard, a clean dog, and we washed his blankets. clean dog on clean blankets. it's a marvelous thing. he also got his toenails trimmed and his teeth brushed on Sunday morning. it was a Randy grooming extravaganza!!
after that, what I really wanted to work on was the front yard, so that's where I went. the leaves needed to be picked up and the lawn mowed one more time this season. I just do both at the same time and mow the leaves. we have two trees that have very small leaves, so it works okay, except for the part where our yard waste bin got full. really full. I packed as much in there as I could, but figured climbing inside and stomping on the stuff would likely be dangerous.
this was in part because I thought, hey, I'm here working anyway. I should rake up the dead hosta leaves along the side of the house. so I did that, which turned out to be big bunch of stuff because under the dead hosta leaves was a thick mat of pine needles from our neighbor's dead tree. the vast majority of the needles are gone now, leaving a barren skeleton of a tree, so I'm hoping we will soon be done with pine needle mess.
then I thought, hey, I haven't trimmed or mowed in the flower bed under the tree all summer, really, so I probably should work on that. which I did. I raked through it and then mowed everything down. and then I thought, hey, I keep meaning to trim around the base of the tulip tree, to make it easier to mow. so I got out the lopper and had at it.
discovered our tulip tree has some sort of bug infestation. I suppose I should assume it's termites. note to self: have to call someone to look at it. don't want 1) the tree to die, or 2) the termites to migrate to the house.
mowed and mowed and mowed some more. stuffed as much stuff as I could in the Yardy. mow, mow, mo--YOW! that's a dead squirrel!
it was in the grass at the food of the tree near the street, right on the property line. dagnabbit. if it had been over farther, I would have let our neighbor Justin worry about it. obviously hadn't been there very long, either. so I had David find a plastic bag, and had the dubious pleasure of picking up yet another dead rodent. blechy.
mow, mow, mow. lots of leaves. when all was said and done, I didn't have enough room in the Yardy to mow Joe's yard, unfortunately. I also couldn't get the Yardy back up our hill. so I ended up pushing it over to the curb in front of Joe's house. he and Brent [on the corner] share a driveway, since their houses don't have access to the alley. that's where they put their trash, recycle, and Yardies.
then I went back inside, as the darkness fell, and crashed. David made me dinner, because he's awesome that way.
Sunday was another beautiful day, but I didn't do any more yard work, because I had nowhere to put the clippings. sure, sure. actually, I could have just mulched the grass in the back yard and left the clippings. I just didn't want to.