Yard work

Mis-spending my life?

Emily Christensen (I’m sorry—I don’t know who she is) once said that a clean house is the sign of a misspent life.

This may be true. Certainly, there are more significant things one could be doing than sweeping floors.

But, I’ll tell you this. I’m sort of enjoying my currently—quite possibly temporarily—orderly house.

I was chatting over the last couple of days with various people who have been looking at the house next door. It’s recently gone on the market, and a lot of folks seem to be interested in it. It’s in a prime location, doesn’t need much work, and the price is pretty good. The realtors all seem to think it’s going to sell quickly.

The would-be purchasers have all had the usual questions. Do you like the neighborhood? How long has the house been empty? Is there anything wrong with it? And, because we live on the water, what about flooding?

What’s interesting to me is they almost all say very complimentary things about our house.

Mostly, I see the fogged window panes that need replacing and the parts of the lawn that are mostly weeds and the cracks in the driveway and the treehouse that needs drastic renovation.

Their enthusiasm has caused me to take a good look at it again.

And I’ve realized how far we’ve come since we moved into Casa Lagarto. Yes, there is still a long way to go. But. . .a new roof, the river rocks in all the flower beds, a front door instead of plywood, a roof on the dock, all the exterior trim painted, a new a/c system, new carpet in three rooms, furniture for the master bedroom, furniture for the guest room, the whole interior painted, a kitchen sink, a bathroom sink, two termite-damaged walls replaced.

That’s a lot.

And. . .there are the results of my hour-a-day cleaning and hour-a-day yard work.

At the moment, however long it lasts, there’s no clutter and no dust. The driveway and sidewalks are edged, the flower beds weeded. There are some leaves—because the dang Wizard of Oz trees shed from October to March—but the bulk of them have been raked and mowed and handled. The ligustrum has been trimmed. And the pittosporum.

We’re looking pretty good.

Inside and out.

It’s a miracle.

I plan to enjoy it while it lasts. (Check back with me next week!)

Actual dirt.

Not gossip or scandal or anything like that.

I’m talking about dirt. Erosion. Because I have been noticing for some time now that the yard is trying to take back the driveway. Little by little, the lawn has crept over the edge.

We’ll set aside the fact that I have plenty of bare spots on the lawn itself—where, you know, if the grass wanted to move somewhere, there would be little, if any, resistance. Or, wait. Let’s not. Set it aside, I mean. What possesses the grass to try to grow over and through the concrete driveway instead of turning around and nestling into the nice soft dirt?! I think the grass might be in cahoots with my Wizard of Oz trees. I don’t want to sound paranoid, but, seriously, what possible benign reason could there be for trying to grow on concrete?

Anyway, I’ve been noticing this encroachment, and yesterday, I decided I would have to do something about it. I started out using my weed whacker as an edger—a task at which it is surprisingly effective. However, there came a point on the driveway where I was going to have to trim back about a foot (a foot!) of dirt and grass.

Enter the grubbing hoe. The grubbing hoe is a very nice implement. I like it. Using it, I found the edge of the driveway again. And I dislodged most of the dirt and grass that had crept over it.

But I live in Florida, and the dirt is mostly sand, and pretty much as fast as you remove the side of a hill, the hill slides down.

An unending supply of dirt.

Next stop. The home improvement store.

I guess it’s time to get some of that plastic edging until one of two things happens. Either the remaining grass will put out tendrils and roots to anchor the sand, or we will have the time, energy, funds, and artistic sense to come up with something better. Meanwhile, I’m going to end that unending supply of dirt!

Elaine Smith Writes

Anything She Wants

Tag Archives: Yard work

Inside and Out

An unending supply of dirt

Actual dirt.