It's been unseasonably warm out here in New Jersey. Sad for the polar bears, but good for me. Steve and I spent the whole weekend outside doing yardwork.
The previous owners had landscapers who did the basics, but that was about it. All the shrubbery is over grown. Leaves are trapped under everything. There's way too much English ivy snaking its way up the pine trees. Two full cords of wood are rotting in the center of the backyard. It all needs to get cleared out.
While there's plenty of land in the front of the house. It's shady and at a corner. We can't do much with it. The prime real estate of the yard - the zone for grilling and chilling -- is quite small. Only 12 feet deep. The patio is crumbling. I don't think the previous owners used the backyard at all and, instead created a shade garden for the birds. And the rats who chowed down on all the bird seed. It's hard to drink beer in an alley full of annoying shrubbery and rats.
We pulled out about ten of the shrubs yesterday. More still needs to get chopped.
The good thing about yard work is that killing old shrubbery is cheap. Clippers and a saw. We probably need to rebuild the crumbling patio. That won't be cheap. But we can probably put that off for a year or two. We also need to plant a few new shrubs to help cover up the Taj Mahal that our neighorbors built around their pool, but I haven't decided what will go in and where it will go. I need to cut everything down before I decide what to put in.
I am in the midst of writing a very serious piece right now about neighborhoods, so I'm only going to write silly stuff on Apt. 11D today.