When your central air system came over on the Mayflower...
posted by peppermint at 3:49 PM
...you may find yourself migrating towards the great outdoors more than you used to. Our central air exchanger is so old it runs on Flintstone power - we have a little dinosaur in there running on a wheel. For its age the a/c unit performs tremendously ... for the low, low price of a bajillion dollars a month. For this reason we opt to use it somewhat sparingly, and luckily our floor plan is airflow friendly. By throwing the windows open in the dining room, sunroom and living room we are able to take advantage of mother nature (without getting her drunk first, the slut).
"Operation Great Outdoors" started with my desire to whip the lawn into shape. The lawn, never one to back down from a challenge, has slowly and methodically kicked my ass. In the High School of Lawn Care, the lawn has repeatedly plunged my head into a flushing toilet, given me an atomic wedgie and then shoved me into a locker. All that being said, the backyard does manage to serve its purpose as a wildlife habitat, and it seems to resent any effort to develop it into anything more.
Exhibit "A" - Happy Wildlife:
In Nicholas' world swings are not to sit on, they are an apparatus for flight. I did also manage to find him a child-size hammock chair to hang in the Larch tree.
Backyards are for kids! It's not exactly as though we looked at the house and ever said "Boy! I can't wait to run around that backyard!" I can come to terms with the reality of the situation, which is that I shouldn't expect too much from the backyard. (The front yard, however, has some explaining to do).
Still, we have this large fenced in backyard and no neighbors behind us so we simply had to change our expectations. The grass is not going to be lush, green and weed free. I will get over it.
Perhaps sensing our discontent with the outdoor living spaces for those of us over the age of 6, Tom's parents surprised us on their last night in town with these groovy retro chairs for our back patio:
Tom's mother is a wily woman, let me tell you. She made up all kinds of stories trying to get us out into the backyard to discover these chairs (they'd bought and assembled them while we were at work that day). Finally she managed to get us out there under the guise of figuring out whether or not the plant in my backyard that looked like rhubarb was actually rhubarb. (It is, but it needs work.)
The new chairs inspired us to take our patio to the next level by adding Tom's dream grill - a 22" Weber Kettle Grill, because he's a grilling purist and everyone who grills on anything else is dead to him. They can go straight to hell - the 22" Weber kettle grill is where it is at! I was already planning to buy this grill for him for his birthday in July, but watching him drool and whimper every time he walked by one was getting to be a little too much for my heart to take so it became an early birthday present for two very important reasons. ONE: The grilling season is only so long so you have to take advantage. TWO: Stuff cooked on the grill is stuff I don't have to cook.
Now we're talkin'. The backyard is really shaping up at this point.
Over the weekend we went to Menard's because I have these crazy weeds that started as small patches and are slowly taking over large sections of the lawn. Some help from the garden center employee revealed that my problem weed is creeping charlie, which I guess is some pretty scary shit because there was a man standing a few feet away from her when she was looking for a picture of it in the Ortho book, and the man AUDIBLY GASPED when she said "creeping charlie." Geezus, buddy! Is it going to kill me in my sleep? Suddenly still frames from Little Shop of Horrors were running through my head and I felt the money being siphoned out of my wallet. I imagined the remedy for creeping charlie was not going to be inexpensive considering THAT guy, over THERE, visibly grimaced and gasped out loud at the mere mention of it as though he knew a guy who lost his family to creeping charlie.
I already started with a pathetic lawn and somehow managed to raise its rating to "only mildly pathetic" after a few weeks. Now the only way to keep it green is to water it every day because our weather system seems to be stalled out on "dry" and "hot as all get out". To top it all off it turns out I have some sort of creeping, man-eating weed infestation. None of this was bringing us joy-joy feelings about our backyard, you know?
So we decided to implement our own remedy.
Which brings us to one of my favorite mottoes in life: If you can't beat it ... kill it.
And that's just what we did.
Survive THAT, man-eating weed!
"Operation Great Outdoors" started with my desire to whip the lawn into shape. The lawn, never one to back down from a challenge, has slowly and methodically kicked my ass. In the High School of Lawn Care, the lawn has repeatedly plunged my head into a flushing toilet, given me an atomic wedgie and then shoved me into a locker. All that being said, the backyard does manage to serve its purpose as a wildlife habitat, and it seems to resent any effort to develop it into anything more.
Exhibit "A" - Happy Wildlife:
In Nicholas' world swings are not to sit on, they are an apparatus for flight. I did also manage to find him a child-size hammock chair to hang in the Larch tree.
Backyards are for kids! It's not exactly as though we looked at the house and ever said "Boy! I can't wait to run around that backyard!" I can come to terms with the reality of the situation, which is that I shouldn't expect too much from the backyard. (The front yard, however, has some explaining to do).
Still, we have this large fenced in backyard and no neighbors behind us so we simply had to change our expectations. The grass is not going to be lush, green and weed free. I will get over it.
Perhaps sensing our discontent with the outdoor living spaces for those of us over the age of 6, Tom's parents surprised us on their last night in town with these groovy retro chairs for our back patio:
Tom's mother is a wily woman, let me tell you. She made up all kinds of stories trying to get us out into the backyard to discover these chairs (they'd bought and assembled them while we were at work that day). Finally she managed to get us out there under the guise of figuring out whether or not the plant in my backyard that looked like rhubarb was actually rhubarb. (It is, but it needs work.)
The new chairs inspired us to take our patio to the next level by adding Tom's dream grill - a 22" Weber Kettle Grill, because he's a grilling purist and everyone who grills on anything else is dead to him. They can go straight to hell - the 22" Weber kettle grill is where it is at! I was already planning to buy this grill for him for his birthday in July, but watching him drool and whimper every time he walked by one was getting to be a little too much for my heart to take so it became an early birthday present for two very important reasons. ONE: The grilling season is only so long so you have to take advantage. TWO: Stuff cooked on the grill is stuff I don't have to cook.
Now we're talkin'. The backyard is really shaping up at this point.
Over the weekend we went to Menard's because I have these crazy weeds that started as small patches and are slowly taking over large sections of the lawn. Some help from the garden center employee revealed that my problem weed is creeping charlie, which I guess is some pretty scary shit because there was a man standing a few feet away from her when she was looking for a picture of it in the Ortho book, and the man AUDIBLY GASPED when she said "creeping charlie." Geezus, buddy! Is it going to kill me in my sleep? Suddenly still frames from Little Shop of Horrors were running through my head and I felt the money being siphoned out of my wallet. I imagined the remedy for creeping charlie was not going to be inexpensive considering THAT guy, over THERE, visibly grimaced and gasped out loud at the mere mention of it as though he knew a guy who lost his family to creeping charlie.
I already started with a pathetic lawn and somehow managed to raise its rating to "only mildly pathetic" after a few weeks. Now the only way to keep it green is to water it every day because our weather system seems to be stalled out on "dry" and "hot as all get out". To top it all off it turns out I have some sort of creeping, man-eating weed infestation. None of this was bringing us joy-joy feelings about our backyard, you know?
So we decided to implement our own remedy.
Which brings us to one of my favorite mottoes in life: If you can't beat it ... kill it.
And that's just what we did.
Survive THAT, man-eating weed!
3 Comments:
You get yourself a fifteen foot trampoline and you be all set! :-)
Creeping charlie has nothing o Japanese knotweed. We too have creeping charlie over here in hicksville, but this monster killer bamboo as well. Only our pool and trampoline won't kill it.
I made our kids a sling swing lycra thing that is pretty close to the hammock think you got going on there! Very nice!!!
You're chairs were comfortable and well suited for a guy with a tin hip; the water in the pool was cool and felt good. Just don't lean on the edge. Your picture turned out good too! I'm sorry I can't share it here with you but if you come to the cities I do have a copy for you. Thanks for the hospitality!
Creeping Charlie is green and has pretty flowers! The park behind my house is full of it. You get used to it.
Your Nicholas is a fine young man. Bring him by if you get a chance. It was good to meet you, Peppermint! You and Tom have a nice house. Good grilling!
*tap tap*
Hello?
Where'd y'all go? I'm having a decided lack of amusing blog entries to read.
:p
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