Finding Joy in Snarkville

I’m not sure anyone is unaware that one of the greatest hates of Frankenhouse was its overgrown yard.  It appears that the owners thought if a little green was good — a LOT was so much better.  There were a metric ton of plants in the yard (most of them rose bushes) and everything grew BIG.  I hated it.  I much prefer clean open spaces in my landscaping (my desk is a whole ‘nother story).  I like to SEE the individual plants.  I like knowing what is a weed and what is a plant.  Simple is my motto.

(On a sidenote:  I ought to mention that Frankenhouse is on the market.  It is horribly overpriced and already had one price drop.  In prepping the house to sell, the owners ripped up much landscaping; painted the front door; and painted the walls inside; and finally put the inserts in the cabinet doors that hadn’t been there when we rented so many years ago.)

So, when we looked at homes here, we basically had reactions to Frankenhouse.  We wanted larger (enough room for our stuff).  We wanted AC (because really — Frankenhouse gets 100 degree days — here not so many and people have AC here).  We wanted a real yard with grass (Duke told his kindergarten teacher about the new house and the ONLY thing he noted was the grass).  We wanted a usable kitchen (One of my friends once picked a house out because of the counter tops — I think she or her husband laid down on them when measuring them — I totally see their point).  We wanted a non-overgrown yard.

Um, we got it.  In fact, it appears that to the opposite of the Frankenpeople (great name for owners of Frankenhouse); the previous owners (we shall call them the Hermits*) thought that bushes of evergreens was all that was needed.  Not pretty evergreens mind you — the kind that are dead inside and only green on the outside.  There are about 6 that are currently marked for death.

A few days ago, we learned of a sale of my favorite shrub (hydrangeas) at the garden center.  So, we decided to re-do ONE bed of plants.  This bed only had one of the evergreens and a few smaller plants and a TON of weeds.  I weeded and pulled all the ugly small plants.  Prince was to dig up the evergreen and plant the bushes.  He stuck his shovel in the ground and promptly BROKE our shovel.  There was cussing and running to post the photo on Facebook.  Prince goes to buy a new shovel.

He continues to try to remove this evergreen thing.  He BENDS this shovel in the process.  More cussing.  I start to giggle.  He threatens me with the bent shovel — which was far funnier than it looks in print.  Finally, with the aid of clippers we get this plant out of our yard.  The sun shone.  The birds sung.  There were happy chipmunks and squirrels knitting dresses for me — it was a moment.  Up until Prince began to dig the hole for my new shrubs.

Prince: “Wow, I was under the mistaken impression that there was DIRT in these beds.”

Me: “Really, is it all mulch or bad dirt — should I go pick-up some top soil or something.” (See me, being helpful and apparently stupid.)

Prince: “No — there’s nothing but ROOTS in these beds.”

I’m guessing why those ugly evergreens stayed.

Next call — a landscaper for ugly shrub removal AND stump grinding.

*We will call them the Hermits, because as I’m meeting my neighbors, I’m learning that despite living her for 25+ years — no one knew them.  How that is possible baffles me.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 6th, 2009 at 10:15 am and is filed under A House to a Home. 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.