It's no secret that I like the outdoors... except after moving out here. The heat, the humidity, and the little tiny biting midges... it's just impossible. "Outside" was easier to deal with back in Texas because only the first of those three things was really a problem, and also plants grew really slowly. In Charleston if you turn around the grass has grown 4 inches because it rains roughly every other day from late spring - early fall. Landscaping was terrible, this fence was worse, and I set out to do a little something about it.
So I was told around 1979 the previous owner's parents planted a couple of loquat trees right up against the house. Like up against the bricks, which is a terrible idea for plenty of reasons. It took a chain saw, a lot of digging, and the truck to remove the larger of the two (also conveniently located right next to the gas meter).
The remainder of the landscaping in the front yard was awful as well, so I took out all of it and planted some new things. Thousands of weeds came along with, but up until the horde showed up things looked pretty good!
I also planted a pecan tree in the hopes of getting pecans sometime reasonably soon. If the grass and everything else grows like crazy this will too...... right?
(9 years later she still has yet to get any pecans)
The old fence gone, now with a new one in place. This was really fast to put up. Just cut the dog eared part off of the pickets and use the cut off bits as a spacer to keep the gap between all of the pieces of wood the same. The frame for the gate pieces is made of chain link fence pipe and both of them have a caster from Harbor Freight on the bottom to help keep them from sagging. Works a LOT better than the old gate which has no support whatsoever and was made from pieces of wood that were all warped and junky.
Wrapping up the first half of the year, indoors. The first big project done and behind me but under pressure to finish the design and get the next one started. On a more personal level things weren't going so well since the previous summer. The first rental house had a major construction accident during what was supposed to be a simple roof replacement. The other three parties insurance companies just pointed their finger at each other, I had to hire an attorney, and some of the advice given was bad.
I also lost an immediate family member in the fall, right around one of the last updates before the multi-year break this site took. It wasn't until summer that I could really begin to process it all, but that was left incomplete for a long time.
The calm before chaos returns.
No comments:
Post a Comment