Blog Break is Over!

An article by Rachel    Comments Off

Yep. That’s right. My unplanned blog hiatus is coming to an end. Somehow summer just took over and blogging fell to the way side. I missed it. So I’m back with lots of good stuff.

Up first: Labor Day Happenings

On Saturday, our neighbor FINALLY came through with her commitment and cut down her very dead blue spruce. This tree was my nemesis. It shed lots and lots of pine needles in our yard, and after every storm, we had to pick pine tree branches.

While I don’t have a picture of bare ground, you can trust me. It’s gone. Along with it, the neighbor removed a couple of elms trees that were a bit too close to her foundation. So there’s even more sun in our yard. Oh I love the sun. The snail population will need to find a nice new home.

The tree removal immediately led to us planning how to use the back portion of our lawn. In the Spring we cleaned up the area. Since I knew the tree was coming down some day, I really wanted to plant a vegetable garden back there. It all depended on getting adequate sun light. By Monday, we knew we’d have more than enough sun to grow nice big red tomatoes.

So on Monday afternoon, we set out to rid the yard of odd stretches of sidewalk. With a couple of blows of the sledge hammer, Ross broke up the concrete into nice big chunks. In less than an hour, we managed to break up the first stretch of sidewalk.

By the way, breaking up sidewalk was a lot easier than I thought it would be. Of course I wasn’t the one swinging the hammer. The sledge hammer was the perfect tool. It made nice big chunks that we could pick up. A jack hammer would have been over kill and would have created more work by making bit-sized pieces of concrete.

In the picture below, you’ll notice concrete next to the fence. No, I don’t know why there’s this bit of concrete next to the fence. I only know that next Saturday we’ll break it up and haul it to the dump.

Then it will be time to get the ground ready for it’s next life: a vegetable garden. There’s still some minor negotiations about how the land will be used. So far Ross is growing potatoes not in raised beds, and I’m growing everything else in raised beds. Regardless we need bring water to the area. Nobody is looking forward to digging that trench.

Oh, and it case anybody is wondering, there will be more blog posts in the very near future. I have a couple of quilting updates that need to shared.