Yardwork Season Opener

Spring has officially arrived.

 Do you know how I know?  Today is the first day this year that I got to mow the entire lawn.

Yes, every week from here until November-ish, I will be out mowing my back yard instead of doing fun things like geocaching, or clipping my toe nails, or... pretty much anything else.

Ok, fine, lawn mowing isn't the worst thing in the world (that would be watching someone clip their toe nails), but it does mean I got to walk every inch of my back yard. It is 2.56 miles of walking to mow my lawn so at least I got a hike (of every decreasing concentric circles) in.

After the lawn mowing I put some more dirt into my raised vegetable beds in preparation for the seedlings in a few weeks, which are currently just starting to sprout in a little tray in my living room window.

To commemorate the start of yardwork season, I'll leave you with some photos of the day.  Starting with Zeke helping daddy mow.

Abigail getting in on some of the action.

Zekey helping Daddy rake in some of the new dirt.

 Not surprisingly, Zeke loves to play in the dirt.

Treefall

Last week our area received a lot of rain and some strong winds.  As a result we had a 60ft pine tree fall in our back yard, taking out my back chain-link fence, and filling it with that nice fallen murdered pine tree scent.

Today we had our landscapers come out and remove the dead tree.  While they were here we also got them to drop a mostly-dead poplar that was uncomfortably close to the house.

The poplar was so rotten that when it hit the ground it shattered. Luckily for you fine folks, I took a video:


As you can see it didn't quite fall exactly where expected, but it did make a most satisfying thud when it hit the ground.

Here are some more photos, starting with a before shot, and then the aftermath of a shattered tree. It is a good thing we fell it when we did. It was just a matter of time before it fell, and likely on top of my bedroom (between you and me, I frown on poplar trees sharing the bed with me and my wife).

 This explains all the bees we had this summer. I never could find that nest...

Berm

Before Photo

 It is Memorial Day here in the US.  For the Canadians reading this think May 24 but a week later.

Since I had a 3 day weekend I decided to take on a project that has been needing to be done since I moved in.  Specifically I needed to find a way to stop the erosion along my back fence line.  I have a creek in my back yard that occasionally floods.  I also get a lot of water flow through my backyard when it rains, and it is chipping away at the bank.

  A landscaper who goes to my church suggested that we build a berm to slow down the water, and an armored channel (made of rock) to drain the excess water into the creek.  This weekend my wife, Zeke and I built such a berm, and to make it less of an eyesore, we made it into a raised garden.

It is a surprisingly large amount of work to build a berm.  I moved 1.3 tons of rock, and 6(ish) cubic yards of soil into place, not to mention the mulch.  It took us part of Friday, all day Saturday and all Monday afternoon to complete the project.  We took Sunday off, not cause of the Sabbath (cause a) Sabbath is on Saturday, b) I'm not Jewish and c) New Covenent - woohoo!), but because we ran out of dirt :) (We spent Sunday afternoon caching and listening to music in Banner Elk NC, up in the mountains - my wife's blog has more information)

So right now we are incredibly tired, very sore, but in our back yard is the results of a long weekends labour.  I present to you, the BearBerm(tm)

After Photo