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| Last summer, being the first summer we had spent in our new house, I noticed that the weed situation along the side of the house was absolutely insane. It was like a jungle back there, some of the weeds were taller than me. That side of the house is fairly inaccessible; it's just a narrow strip between the house and the fence, with the air conditioner and the gas meter and pretty much nothing else. It doesn't get much light, and no one ever goes there. I simply couldn't bear going around there during the summer to try to get rid of the weeds. But I knew I needed to do something about them, or else they would encroach out into the lawn or something. So I told myself that the following year, I would take care of that area in the spring. Well, that day was yesterday. I have actually put off doing it for a while because the job was more annoying than I thought it would be. Apparently under all those weeds were these big flagstones that had been put down, probably with the goal of, well, keeping weeds away. But the weeds just grew around them. Last summer I couldn't even see any of these big stones because they were completely covered. But after all the weeds died off and the snow melted, I popped back there to size up the amount of work ... and there they were. Here's what I did yesterday: 1) Lifted all the flagstones up and stacked them up against the fence, out of the way 2) Pulled out all the weeds I could find (some were growing already! And there were many dead weed corpses left from the winter) 3) Raked and turned up the dirt to remove any old roots 4) Sprayed the whole area with some environmentally safe weed killer to remove any roots I couldn't see. 5) Laid down some weed-be-gone landscape fabric 6) Covered the entire area with pine bark 7) Carried the flagstones back and laid them nice and symmetrically on top of everything. All in all, this took me about five hours (including a trip to home depot to pick up more pine). It wouldn't have been such a big deal if these flagstones hadn't weighed like 75llbs each. There were fourteen of them, each about 30x30 inch squares (a bit like this), and after picking up and lifting the first one I was seriously considering giving up. But it was such a nice day, I figured I'd just go for it. I managed, but despite my attempts to lift these big stones correctly (ie, with my legs) I'm telling you my lower back still hurts quite a bit today. However, the area looks nice and clean and weed free now, plus it smells great - like a pine forest. And more importantly, it is completely maintenance free! Hopefully I will not have to care about that part of the house for the next five years. We shall see what happens this summer. |
APR 28, 2008 01:50 PM
I built a fence in my backyard on the weekend with the help of my brother. Ok, Ok - it was only about a six foot stretch, but still.
I must say I'm really enjoying being a homeowner.