Brandon and Jordan rose early and were hard at it when Chris and I got to the old house this morning.
The underlay is going up fast. Keith brought them more this morning.
Keith and Brandon had a consultation and then Keith left for Ames to
see his parents and to play in a golf tournament tomorrow with his dad.
Brandon and Jordan started pulling off the bad spots on the east side.
And got the zip board up on part of the back. They also had the stairs to both decks finished
by the time we got there.
As an interesting aside... Keith and I saw this zip board product used at a home show probably 3 years ago in the spring. Keith remembered it all this time, and it is as strong or stronger than plywood, and CHEAPER.
Christopher got right to it and was cutting down saplings and weed eating. I tried to
pull the weeds from this garden bed... it just wasn't happening.
He did some judicious weed eating... but then... we ran out of weed eater cord.
While he was weed eating, I was at it with the nippers.
Look! There was still a viburnam (hydrangea????) under all those weeds! And.. it's healthy!
The sedum was buried, but still blooming.
Even though I had Chris do judicious weed eating, I am going to have to dig
out this south bed and then re-bed with dirt and mulch. Then... I hope we have the house rented, and
it will not be my problem for a long time. You just can't maintain garden beds from a distance.
We found this little guy at the top of the storage building door.
The faithful Lil was with us.
This scene greeted us behind the shop, the barn we used as a shop. The fence line on the right
is the fence between our yard and Troy and Kathy's.... covered with grapevine. I couldn't see
how Troy had been able to cut back here... then I went closer.
It was a MAZE of wild grape vine on two sapling trees. We cut... and cut... and cut... and then cut the saplings.
I did not take a picture of the piles we have made in two days... they are huge and many. I talked to Troy about it, and he and I will try to haul them down to our brush heap with his tractor... OR... I had a later discussion with Keith, and he and I will haul them in the back of the truck IF we don't get significant rain this weekend.
I just have this to say... if you buy a place in the country, this is what you deal with day in and day out. We have only been gone five months... and literally, the place would be a jungle if Troy had not been cutting the grass, and doing a little weed eating. I explained to Chris as we worked that every single night after work... I would feed the animals, and then start working on something in the yard or pasture... cutting down weeds, etc. etc. and that it was never ending.
There were some bright spots.
In the course of all this, Chris was stung by a wasp, and began to swell. Troy took
him next door to give him a Benadryl... and you know that causes drowsiness.
And then this happened:
It would have been funny if we hadn't been so tired and hot and sweaty... the rake broke as Chris was raking some of the debris from the flower bed. We started laughing... and then I told him that it
was a sign from God that we needed to stop for the day.
He is sleeping downstairs as I type this... we were both worn out. Yes, his leg is swollen, but
I think he'll be fine.
I'm going to clean myself up and go to the T Bones game for a while... Chris is not a baseball fan, so he
will stay here and rest up for a trip with his mom and brother tomorrow.
Keith is having dental surgery on Monday, but then I'll work out at the old house
doing yard cleanup little by little as the week goes on...
and the good thing is... we're getting closer each week!
