yard | Piss and Moan

Projects, projects, and more projects

Posted on June 1, 2021 by backuphill

So, how do you know when you have too many irons in the fire? Is it that you just look at everything and can’t decide which is most important or where to start because they just all need to be done? Or is it that you look at everything and you just decide that you don’t know where to start and therefore just don nothing?

Currently, I have too many things going on that I can’t decide where to start, though there is a looking deadline of rain coming at the end of the week, so that dictates a little of the timeline.

Project one: I have a front yard that needs some attention. I have a hedge and a tree that need trimmed and some Sluggo (bait for slugs and snails) to put down. While these aren’t extremely time consuming and aren’t necessarily urgent, they are the final pieces to having the front yard cleaned up for the summer.

Project two: A garage sale purchase needs cleaned up and tested. The house gets exceptionally warm during hit weather, but there isn’t a heat pump to control the temp inside. So, while visiting a garage sale recently someone was selling a pretty decent portable AC unit for $25. It’s four years old and needs to be cleaned up. I had the guy run it before purchase and it appears to be operable, but it needs to be given some attention. Unfortunately, it won’t likely happen before the warmer weather this week.

Project three: The patio has been built in the back yard and a gazebo purchased. Spent most of the day yesterday working on putting wood sealant on it to further protect the wood into the future. Now the assembly of the gazebo needs to be done…a very time consuming task. Obviously, having it constructed before the weather comes in this weekend would be ideal as it would help to keep the water from hitting most of the wood. So, that seems to be the immediate winner of focus.

There are lots of other projects that needs to be done too, just none of those seem as pressing as these three.

When faced with a list of projects, how do you prioritize which ones get done first?

I swear…

Posted on April 19, 2021 by backuphill

Ever heard someone else utter those words? Ever heard yourself utter those words? Have you “had it” to the level that you begin muttering under your breath and out comes those words, followed by a definitive statement that you have no intention of following through with?

I have heard that phrase from others in the past. I can distinctly remember my mother saying that phrase several times. The multiple occasions probably probably involved my brother and I (or maybe my sisters). I can’t remember exactly, but I do remember that we all knew it was time to be on our best behavior or something was going to happen that involved the “tanning of our backsides.”

Anyway, I have reached my level.

Only it isn’t with children (though I am sure I have uttered this about them too).

It’s the pets today.

The cat won’t shut up. Meow. Meow. Meow meow meow…seriously! What the heck! I have let him outta the house three times already today. In and out. In and out.

The dog is even worse. Whine and whine and whine….and then there is the whole in and out, in and out, thing with her too. The dog has gone out to the back yard 8 times already. 8! Sure it’s a nice day outside, but heck if I know what the hell she wants.

So, I swear…if I gotta let them outta the house one more time…

Working from home is great, but this is admittedly a downside. The interruptions are incessant.

I swear…

Project overload

Posted on June 22, 2020 by backuphill

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Spring and summer…

…mean projects.

Somehow, I keep adding projects to my list instead of actually finishing the ones I have already going. I am getting to project overload. Or is it projects overlord? Either way, I have enough to do for the rest of the summer.

I gotta stop this.

I can only track so many things at once. Men have “boxes” and too many “boxes” means that we can’t get anything done because we are trying to arrange and balance those “boxes.”

As such, focus is lost because now I am worrying about how to make those boxes work.

Time to dump boxes and focus on one.

Which is most important? One thing at a time. Please.

Delivery Jackass

Posted on December 27, 2019 by backuphill

So, is this how you were trained? Is this how we do things now? Total disregard for people’s property and landscaping?

Is this how FedEx trains its delivery people? Did this delivery driver get it right?

My guess is that this jackass tromping through my flower bed, tripping over the little wire decorative fence, and then turning around to go back the way he came wasn’t at the top of his training class.

Wait? How much training do these people even get?

No wonder Amazon is looking to abandon using FedEx for delivery.

Actually, I can’t pick on FedEx too much because I had a United States Postal Service mailperson (hint) do the same thing earlier in the month. I thought about sharing it, but thought it was a one off, so didn’t think it was that important but now I see shortcuts are a common practice, apparently.

That’s a rather irritating practice. I hope I am home the next time this happens.

Anyone else have a delivery story that annoyed the hell out of you?

Stiff and sore

Posted on September 3, 2019 by backuphill

Photo by rawpixel.com on Pexels.com

All that work on the house and in the yard yesterday has me moving much slower today. Age isn’t just a number, so don’t listen.

I suppose if I did this stuff on a regular basis, I would be less sore. But, climbing up and down a ladder repeatedly to put up gutter guards and using the shears to cut down bushes aren’t something that happens regularly, so that little piece of advice goes in one ear and out the other.

OK, OK, being more physically active would be better, I know.

But today, just let me wallow in my tired, stiff and sore irritation. It’s just best for everyone.

Nuisance neighbor

Posted on June 25, 2019 by backuphill

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Well, the nuisance neighbor is at it again. No, I don’t mean the guy that lives next door. He actually is a pretty good guy. I mean the neighbor that moved into the yard. No, I don’t mean the family of trailer dwellers in the yard.

I mean the neighbor who digs holes throughout the yard and leaves mounds of fresh dirt behind as evidence that my efforts to exterminate him (or her; or them) are failing.

Yes, there is at least one but probably more like a family of moles living in the yard and they are popping up all over the place despite my best efforts to trap and kill them INHUMANELY.

I may have to resort to nuking the yard.

Perhaps the US Government would be interested in testing the next big nuke in my yard? I know that sounds drastic, but I am not even sure if that would take care of the little diggers. Pests.

These things are making me a grumpy(er) old man…

Got any yard problems or pests you’d like to go nuclear on?

Infested

Posted on June 10, 2019 by backuphill

Photo by Egor Kamelev on Pexels.com

Taking care of a yard, along with all the other things around the house when you’re not at work, can be a pain in the rear. Limited time, limited funds, limited knowledge. Sometimes you can work around two of those, but when the trifecta hits there can be a severe case of the weekend warrior blues.

Thankfully, I have less of those blues than I used to. However, there are somethings in the yard that just irritate me to no end!

There are some flowering trees in the front yard – cherry, plum, whatever. I can’t remember. All I know is they have white blossoms on them in the Spring when they bloom. Anyway, they have taken some work to keep them under control (they grow really fast!) and pruning them is no joy.

This year, they are infested with aphids. Like INFESTED! The trees look sickly and the leaves are falling off like it is late Fall. I can handle bugs in most cases, but for some reason aphids gross me out.

Yesterday, I hope I took care of the infestation. I did some research and bought some spray for the trees. Let me tell you, I sprayed the hell out of those trees! I want those things gone and I want the trees to still have leaves for the summer. So, I went to war.

If I can remember, I’ll let you know if I won.

What insect gives you the eebie-jeebies and just can’t handle?

Trailer park

Posted on May 16, 2019 by backuphill

Photo by Djordje Petrovic on Pexels.com

Sometimes you do nice stuff for people. Sometimes you don’t.

Sometimes people take advantage of your niceness. Sometimes they don’t.

There are some people staying in my yard, in a trailer. Let’s call them, family. This is the second time they have stayed in the yard, only the first time they were staying in a bigger POS than they are in now. This accommodation was made within the last 15 years, the former was at least 30.

Regardless, I didn’t have much of a say in whether or not they moved into the yard the first time and once again I didn’t have much of a say about their return either. Sometimes, against your better judgement, you have to do nice stuff.

What I didn’t want was for the yard to start looking like a trailer park. What I am getting is that the yard is starting to look like a trailer park. The living space and storage of the trailer is slowly creeping outside and into the yard.

Sometimes nice…isn’t.

Welcome to the trailer park.

Like mowing rocks

Posted on April 1, 2019 by backuphill

douglas-fir-cones_1024x1024

Up here in the PNW we have trees. Lots of them. They’re everywhere. Well, mostly everywhere. There are places that have a shortage of trees, but don’t feel sorry for them. Feel sorry for me. Please. Like right now. Feel it.

Right now I would like to cut down all my trees. I don’t really need them and I don’t really have a use for them. They’re really more of a pain really.

I think I have talked about one aspect of the pain on the blog already, pine needles. I think I also mentioned in another post about trees and their freaking leaves falling in the yard too. BUT there is another aspect of pain that I haven’t yet mentioned when it comes to my trees.

Pine cones.

No, not the great big ones with pokey things on them that smell like cinnamon that you can buy at Michael’s or Hobby Lobby or JoAnn Fabrics during Christmas time. While I am sure those are an issue for someone somewhere, they aren’t my issue.

My pine cones are from the Douglas Fir trees in the yard. (see the photo at the top) These stupid trees produce (seemingly) millions of pine cones every year and then during the winter months they shed them all over my freaking yard. When spring comes and it is time to mow the yard, these pine cones are in varying degrees of opening (so some are “soft” – meaning opened, and some are hard as rocks because they are wet and closed).

It takes time to pick these things up, bent over for hours scouring the ground to find them all (used to bride the kids to do it for money – one year they picked up 40 gallons [8 5-gallon buckets] of them). The kids are old enough now they aren’t going to fall for Dollar Store trinkets any longer.

So, rather than pick them up this year, I just decided to try and mow over them. Oh man the racket!! It was like mowing rocks.

So, between the pine needles and pine cones and sap from some of the trees, and falling leaves from some of the other trees, and moss all over the yard – yeah, this place is a modern day paradise for landscaping nightmares.

#smh

Fall colors = a close simulation of hell

Posted on November 2, 2018 by backuphill

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

“Ooh they’re so pretty!”

“I just love fall. Crisp air and all the pretty colors on the trees.”

…said no one ever! Well, at least by someone who has the major task of raking all that “pretty fall color” out of their yard. Or, if you are in the Northwest, there is the forever piles of pine needles clogging up everything in sight! Sheesh.

As long as the days are dry and the weather is moderately mild, you can cheat and blow them outta the yard into your neighbor’s yard fairly easily. Once it get wet, as in rain, you need a freaking jet engine to blow them things loose.

So, if you don’t (or can’t) stay on top of the task, you are left raking – back busting, blister inducing, getting all wet and cold hell. After hours of sweating and bagging, you can see the lawn. And then the next wind storm comes and the process starts all over again. Welcome to fall hell…

Trees suck. We should cut them all down.