Finding Joy in Snarkville

The saga of Frankenhouse and the garden continues.  In this week’s installment, I offer you the fact that we add to the ‘charms’ of this lovely, overgrown, rose bush (with all the thorns) blooming, pollen overload, hummingbird loving outdoor living area that we have moles.

Oh, yes, at least we think that they are moles.  I’m hoping for moles — not that it makes it any easier to get rid of them, but for some reason in my little brain moles are handleable and not nearly as gross and scary as say “sand burrowing mice,” ok?

Here’s the deal.  The back yard can be divided into 4 zones.

The Patio Zone: This consists of the original concrete slab that was poured for said patio.  It is about 20 to 25 feet square and just off the back door.  The patio zone is easy to maintain, because NOTHING grows on (or in) un-chipped concrete.  I’ve swept it up, hosed it down, and otherwise tried to keep it clear.  The problems with the Patio Zone is that FrankenOwners left us an AWFUL picnic table that I have no idea what to do with since we also have a patio table too.  I do need to buy new cushions for our chairs and when I do it will come with a deck bench for out of the weather (and birds) storage.

The Giant Hill Zone:  About 25 feet from the back of the house is a retaining wall (maybe 3 feet tall).  That wall holds back Mt. Everest, also known as the giant hill in my back yard.  The hill goes up at a 45 degree angle and in theory is fenced all the way around.  I don’t have person knowledge of this, because I’ve never been higher than 5 feet or so.  This area is growing all sorts of fruit trees (apple, peach, kiwi, cherry…more I’m sure) and frankly, it will never be tended by me.  It is the world I allow the dog to own and everyone is ok with that.  The most I care about is that I want to keep the ivy back enough to not over take anything beyond the retaining wall.

The Growth Zone:  FrankenOwners must have hated the thought of mowing.  Because had they not been opposed to this idea, the back yard would have been a lovely play spot with a lush yard to the left of the Patio Zone.  That area gets the right amount of sun, and you could just see a pretty green lawn there.  However, FrankenOwners seem to only have two things of interest (1) A hatred of mowing and all things grass; (2) a love for thorny rose bushes.  So, in the Growth Zone, of which there are two sections, there are no fewer than 9 BILLION rose bushes.  There is an island in the dead center of the backyard planted with just about every blooming thing that grows out here — I want nothing more than to level it and start over.  There is a ‘vegetable garden’ right up against the house.  I don’t plant veggies (because we ALL know they come from the freezer section of the store right?) and I don’t like the thought of rotting veggies so close to me — yes, they would rot, because I’m fickle and would bore quickly of them, hey, I’m honest.  What I want is GRASS.  Just some simple grass.

The 2nd Patio Zone: Between the two sections of the Growth Zones, there are TWO patio materials (lest anyone be confused, this house is the house that a contractor worked on with LEFTOVERS).  One is a lovely basket-weave brick path (that if I owned/cared about this house, I’d leave and rip out the other patio material and the island and GRASS the whole thing).  This path runs between the veggie area and the island from the gate.  The other is a horrible looking, half thrown down, patio of slate.  I normally LOVE slate patios.  This does not thrill me — probably because I KNOW it should have grass there instead.  It is also on the required bed of sand (I promise I’m going somewhere with all of this).

After the year of negelect, we are slowly making our way through the weeds and the garbage and the ‘loveliness’ that is this backyard.  We’ve (I really mean Prince has, since I’ve helped a little, but my job has seemed to be more inside doing laundry and entertaining Duke while Prince runs the chipper) put in a lot of hours and sweat just to be able to walk the paths in the back.  I’ve turned the newly formed compost heap and it seems to be perking along.  We need to clean out the island and then begin to form a plan.  But, it is now safe to allow little boys back there without concern they will be eaten by boy eating weeds.  (Oh, and we discovered WHOLE plant UNDER weeds.)

So, after school this week, I wanted to check something outside and Duke came with me and followed me around in the yard.  He wanders over to the 2nd Patio Zone (which I freely admit isn’t weed free and is oddly VERY sandy — in piles, like between the slate — hmmm, curious).  He kicks a pile of sand — because this is what ALL boys must do when they see a pile of anything.  He looks up at me and declares, “This is MY sandbox.”

“Um, no, sweetie, this is where the moles are building tunnels and one afternoon when you are asleep, I’m coming out here and KILLING them all.  Then, I’m going to pick up all these slate rocks, and plant GRASS.”

Only, I’ll probably never get to the grass plan and will merely sweep up the slate a bit.  But I still dream of grass.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 31st, 2007 at 9:17 am and is filed under Frankenhouse. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.