Yard Work

After 14+ man hours of work in our yard this weekend, it would appear that not much has been accomplished. Yesterday afternoon (a beautiful one that it was), I decided to start on our daunting task of reclaiming our yard. The prior tenants of the house and property neglected the yard so much there is about a one foot average depth of leaves amassed across the yard. From the shed to the property line looked like pure wilderness. Light brush, tree and branch debris, discarded junk, and of course the leaves. It is a total disaster. At one point, they had dogs and had a plastic mesh fence up in the yard. This didn't help matters any either. Along the fencing the leaves were the deepest. For the life of me, I don't know why they allowed the yard to fall into such disarray.

As for the discarded junk, I have found a dog bowl, truck leaf spring, a shattered mirror, rebar, several 2x4s, 2x6s, burnt wood, a Bic lighter, beer bottles, pop cans, and chicken wire. With the depth of the leaves and debris, it is almost a wonder that we haven't found dead bodies in the yard.

So, you may be asking yourself, with all of this stuff that covers about 1/8 of an acre, where is it all going? Well, at the back edge of our property line is a dry creek bed. At one point in time, it appears that this creek used to have some serious momentum. At points it is about two and a half to three feet deep and about two feet wide. I figured that this is my property and additional development in the area has left it barren. Sounds like a wonderful place to put all of my yard debris. Keep in mind, I mean the vegetation debris, I'm not going to put the metal and plastic debris back there. I will find a better home for those things.

To start off the process, I pulled out our brand new bush whacker. Yes, bush, not weed. This tool is a four blade metal disk instead of the string that a weed whacker would use. The cool thing about this tool is that it is a separate attachment for our weed whacker. Craftsman produced a "convertible" system. The motor and half of the shaft are stationary and the bottom end is interchangeable. The system came with a combo blower/weed whacker head. As a Christmas gift, we picked up the brush tool. I am very impressed with the power and efficiency of this thing. The manual indicates that it is capable of cutting brush up to an inch thick. I'm sure I was able to cut down a tree that was was approximately two inches in diameter with no problem. What a great tool.

After I felt that I had gotten a good start in chopping down the miscellaneous brush and trees from the yard, I felt it was a good time to start moving leaves. I began with the rake. I wasn't making big progress quickly, but I could see quite a difference starting. While I was doing this, Angel got home from work. Well, we only had one rake, so how could I give her to help? I attached the blower attachment to the weed whacker and sent her off and running.

Unfortunately, the blower on the initially provided head is not very powerful. It is great for what I believe is its intended purpose. I think this is to be used when week whacking and cleaning up the clippings. At least that's what I've used it for thus far. It worked well for that. However, with this compacted foot plus pile of leaves in the back yard, it has been proven useless. Angel tried to get it to work for a good half an hour before declaring it ineffective. Thankfully, my neighbor has graciously given me full reign to his tools and I took this opportunity to borrow his Stihl backpack leaf blower. (He wasn't home at the time or I would have asked him instead of just taking it. But permission had already been granted so I didn't feel so bad doing it.)

Anyway, Angel decided that she would take the rake and move on and I was using the blower. The tornado like force that this guy pushes out is just amazing. I am so sold with its power, I'm half tempted to get one of my own. This leaf issue isn't about to go away once we get the yard cleared this Spring. I'm not sure the blower is more effective than good old manual labor, but is sure is lower impact on me.

So, Saturday afternoon, I put in at least seven hours into the back yard and Angel contributed about four. Today, I got a late start in the yard, but instead of picking up any power tools, I took to using the wheel barrow and rake to do some cleanup in the area we were working on yesterday, moved all of the miscellaneous debris to a consolidated location, and did some major brush removal. I found yesterday that the more sticks and obstacles in the way, the more difficult it was to get the leaves to move in the desired location. I hope that the work I did today will pay dividends once I pickup the power tools next time.

Anyway, I've got pictures that will illustrate the before and after shots from yesterday and part of today.



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