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May. 30th, 2004 03:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivkaMichael and I are mighty! We have spent much of the weekend putting our yard to rights so we'll be able to enjoy it this summer. This includes:
(1) Sweeping up vast quantities of fallen magnolia leaves, twigs, and dirt.
(2) Scrubbing the courtyard bricks with bleach solution to remove their lovely, picturesque, foully slippery coating of moss.
(3) Weeding, weeding, weeding. Deciding which weeds are scenic and which weeds are a menace. Quelling the wannabe magnolia tree, which is determinedly trying to come back (on the theory that no, two large magnolia trees aren't enough for a small, shady courtyard) after our landlords had it cut down.
(4) Obtaining and assembling permanent lawn furniture: two cast-aluminum swivel rockers with sling seats, two remarkably comfortable folding chairs, and my pride and joy: a beautiful, deep red, full size, kettle-style charcoal grill with an adjustable cooking rack. This replaces the tiny, squat, wobbly, rusty thing I've been cooking on for the past three summers.
(When you don't have central air, and common summer weather is "ninety degrees with ninety percent humidity," grilling is not a pleasant recreational diversion - it's a necessity.)
(5) Washing the window screens and reorganizing the miscellaneous junk stored under the back steps.
(6) Clearing weeds and debris out of the front windowboxes and bushel-size flower pot. Planting nasturtiums (in the living room window box) and morning glories (in the pot, to join the mums and the mysterious but attractive trailing greenery).
(7) Hanging the outdoor garden lights.
(8) Developing strange, itchy skin welts, which later disappear just as mysteriously as they arrived.
Happily, there's a total absence of cicadas in our back yard. I don't know if that's because it's dark and shady there, or because our landlords disturbed the ground when they laid the bricks, or because they don't like magnolia trees, or because our birds have been incredibly diligent. I found dozens of detached cicada wings when I was sweeping, which I think were dropped by the birds, but not a single whole cicada.
Sadly, the Post Office tried to deliver our Buffy Season 6 DVDs yesterday while we were off shopping for lawn furniture. Now we won't be able to retrieve them until Tuesday. But we do have a happy yard.
(1) Sweeping up vast quantities of fallen magnolia leaves, twigs, and dirt.
(2) Scrubbing the courtyard bricks with bleach solution to remove their lovely, picturesque, foully slippery coating of moss.
(3) Weeding, weeding, weeding. Deciding which weeds are scenic and which weeds are a menace. Quelling the wannabe magnolia tree, which is determinedly trying to come back (on the theory that no, two large magnolia trees aren't enough for a small, shady courtyard) after our landlords had it cut down.
(4) Obtaining and assembling permanent lawn furniture: two cast-aluminum swivel rockers with sling seats, two remarkably comfortable folding chairs, and my pride and joy: a beautiful, deep red, full size, kettle-style charcoal grill with an adjustable cooking rack. This replaces the tiny, squat, wobbly, rusty thing I've been cooking on for the past three summers.
(When you don't have central air, and common summer weather is "ninety degrees with ninety percent humidity," grilling is not a pleasant recreational diversion - it's a necessity.)
(5) Washing the window screens and reorganizing the miscellaneous junk stored under the back steps.
(6) Clearing weeds and debris out of the front windowboxes and bushel-size flower pot. Planting nasturtiums (in the living room window box) and morning glories (in the pot, to join the mums and the mysterious but attractive trailing greenery).
(7) Hanging the outdoor garden lights.
(8) Developing strange, itchy skin welts, which later disappear just as mysteriously as they arrived.
Happily, there's a total absence of cicadas in our back yard. I don't know if that's because it's dark and shady there, or because our landlords disturbed the ground when they laid the bricks, or because they don't like magnolia trees, or because our birds have been incredibly diligent. I found dozens of detached cicada wings when I was sweeping, which I think were dropped by the birds, but not a single whole cicada.
Sadly, the Post Office tried to deliver our Buffy Season 6 DVDs yesterday while we were off shopping for lawn furniture. Now we won't be able to retrieve them until Tuesday. But we do have a happy yard.
