And of course, it was the worst of her ideas that we wound up working on all day.
Wanna know what it was? I'll give you a hint. It's the common theme within all these pictures:
No, it's not that it's all overgrown. Well, it is that, but it's not SO much that it's all overgrown as it is what it's all overgrown WITH. (Ending a sentence with a preposition is fun!)
Blackberry canes!
Dear jebus, the blackberries. We've been putting off this particular chore for a while now, and we paid for that procrastination dearly. You can kind of get an idea of what we were dealing with from those pictures up there, especially the second one. That big cane on the left side of the picture is actually coming down from where it grew up into and through the dogwood tree.
Of course, municipality bylaws indicate that you're not allowed to HAVE blackberry canes on residential properties, so we grabbed our thickest (not-quite-thick-enough) gloves, a couple of shovels and the pick and headed out into the yard to take them on.
Four of the scratchiest, sweatiest, annoyingiest hours later, we had this:
Wait a sec. Let's take a closer look at that gate, shall we?
So, to sum up: the gate (which is not actually a gate, but a "repurposed" section of one of the two wrought iron trellis thingies) is held up by two broken broom sticks, a couple of spare bits of rebar, two different kinds of speaker wire, electrical tape, and baling twine. Well, at least it's not crooked or anything.
I should also hasten to point out that the reason we didn't tackle the largest area of blackberries, the one behind the brush pile/grass clippings, is because the War Department seems to think that that's where the little bunny in our yard lives. And she didn't want to disturb it. So we'll be finishing this particular chore next spring. Provided, of course, we can convince the bunny to move out and get a damn job, that deadbeat freeloading hippie.
Anyway, that was our Friday. On Saturday, we took the day off, aside from a couple of short errands and some light housework, and even went down to the park and tossed the baseball around for a while. (Heh, 19 degrees in the middle of October: love it!)
On Sunday, I put two coats of sealer on the bathroom tiles and we got the bathroom door ready for painting while the War Department worked on a bunch of other projects. Oh, and we finally got our mattress delivered, which means I can finally take some pictures of the finished bedroom! Well, as soon as we get some more of the artwork up on the wall, anyway.
So that was our stay-cation. We didn't exactly get ALL of the things done that we wanted to, but we got the bathroom pretty much ready to put together, we got to spend some time in the backyard enjoying the sun and the copious amounts of wildlife, and we ate like freakin' KINGS for pretty much the entire week. (Seriously - the pepperberry chicken was only the start of the good eats.) All in all, I'd have to call it a success.
And of course, for a whole week, we didn't have to go into the office either, so that was pretty sweet.
6 comments:
Hey! That's what Bruce and I did on Sunday. And may I just say - call us next time. Or rather, call Bruce. He pulled out Freddie the machete and destroyed our blackberry infestation in very little time. It was just amazing. Made me feel like quite the slacker. Me and my pruning shears just didn't have the same effect.
Yeah, the problem with the machete approach (trust me, I would LOVE to do it that way) is that cutting them down doesn't do anything - they just grow back again. We really don't want to have to keep cutting them down, so we actually dug ours out, right down to the roots.
This way, when we go to plant stuff there in the spring, we won't have to worry about the blackberries choking out our new shrubs and whatnot.
A machete would help you reach the roots to dig em out though.
I can just see Bruce lashing away...bet he reused some old volleyball moves.
Don, we used the machete and then dug the roots out. But it is sure great to use the machete to cut away the brambles first, and much faster than my approach with the shears.
Heather, I think he was reliving his infantry days. Who knew those skills were good for something besides digging holes? (He is also very good at digging holes!)
See, now the digging holes thing, that we can use!
The War Department won't let me use machetes after the finger incident. :o(
Post a Comment