Yard/House

Tuesday we got out of work early and Wednesday we had off.  I took full advantage of both days to get a lot of yard work done and some good miles.  Tuesday afternoon I went to town with the weed whacker.  It is probably my favorite outside ‘toy.’  I taught myself/figured out how to do the edging around the sidewalk and get the grass that is growing the cracks (garage and sidewalk).  Still room for improvement, but everything looks 100% neater.  Put some grass killer in the cracks to hopefully stop that from growing.  I ended up going through both batteries for the weed whacker.  Still have more to do.  Then I watered the crap out of my lawn.  I planned to spray weed killer the next day and knew that I wouldn’t be watering for a day or two.

Wednesday after my morning run I did a ton of yard work.  I sprayed some weed killer.  One side of the lawn has a ton of crabgrass and dallisgrass.  Pain in the butt.  I think I am going to have to spray once a week for awhile.  Once that was done I was de-grassing my mulch.  The one place I don’t want the grass to grow, it is!  Dad needs to come down and put an edging in around the landscaping.  I got about 80% of one side done.  It took well over an hour and my hands have tons of tiny cuts, but I am trying to get the grass out at the roots.  Then I sprayed more grass killer over it to get the stuff I missed.  Note to self – get gardening gloves.

Dallisgrass

While I was out, my neighbor said I could do his when I was done with mine.  I told him mine would probably take a year to finish, it is that bad.  He came over and we talked for awhile and I feel 100% better about my yard.  The prior owners weren’t the most neighborly people (I sense from talking to both neighbors).  This neighbor was talking about how the prior owners didn’t water the yard in probably two years.  There was never any grass, the ground was always cracking and it basically looked like shit.  The only thing that grew was weeds and they never cut them.  He said at one point the weeds were up to his knees.  He says I already have the lawn looking better than it has in years and that it is going to take time since it was such a mess previously.  I guess now I am pretty proud that there is a lot of green growing.  I have about 60% of the lawn doing decent (aka – I am OK with the progress).  The raking certain areas helps.  Need to fertilize. 

We also talked about automatic sprinklers.  Yep – looking at about $3,500 - $4,000.  That is going to have to wait until next spring.  Can’t afford that at the current moment.

I get frustrated because I want my lawn to look nice.  I don’t want to be the crappy neighbor or house on the block.  I grew up with a beautiful yard.  Yes, growing grass is different in Texas, but still.  At least I know it is getting there.  I don’t have a ton of time to devote to the yard, so it is going to take awhile, but I am on the right track.