Normal Saturday
Saturday, March 11th, 2023 04:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snoozefestaudio40F and breezy today, with very dark cloud cover. I slept in until 1:30PM, and when me and the team convened out in the back yard, we hung around out there for two hours.
I have a little hitching post out in the deep back yard to hook up Yvette's leash. Actually it's a plant hanger, but... now it's a hitching post. She just sits there absorbing the ambiance anyway, so this allows me to have two free hands and do some walking around.
I was looking at everything back there and, with a wood chipper, it's very doable to get rid of the last four saplings that are growing through the chainlink fence in back.
Their trunks would have to be cut up into firewood but the branches could all be easily fed into a chipper.
Same for the juniper sapling growing by the SCOP*. It's a nice little tree, but it's in an awkward spot, and it probably adds greatly to the din of the bush crickets.
I'm thinking of getting rid of the SCOP too. It's old and ugly and falling apart, and it too is in an awkward spot. Dad was sentimental about it, because his grandchildren played on it, but... he's gone now.
With the tripod and the basket I made last summer, I don't really need a platform for the S8. But it would be nice to have like... a little brick pathway and some more low voltage garden lights going all the way out to the back.
But how would those not be a pain in the ass to mow around?
--<>--
Well, at any rate, I did pop down into the shop and bust out the sawzall and the chain saw to take care of a spot that had been bugging me...
Back in the northwest corner, where four property lines meet is this spot... where three chainlink fences meet, and there's an old utility pole for phone lines, that has little foothold hooks sticking out from the sides.
This spot is where all the kids from the other side of the block routinely hop the fences and cut through my yard, or my neighbors.
They grab the foot hook on the utility pole and get up onto the junction, because it's pretty sturdy there with the T-intersection of the fences.
And I don't mind them doing that, but on my side of that junction, there was some stuff that looked a little dangerous.
There was a steel fence post, from the old wire fence we had, which I could not pull out, because of some very thick woodbine roots underground had locked it into place.
But several months ago, the kids had bent this fence post down toward the ground, in an effort to get it out of their way. So that, and a protruding stump from the woodbine just looked... like an accident waiting to happen.
There was also a long branch sticking through the fence in that location, that they'd bent out of the way, but again... they couldn't break it.
So... I had to use the sawzall to cut the fence post as low as I could get. Then I used the chainsaw to cut the woodbine stump down further. Then again with the sawzall on the base of the fence post.
I did this until I had the fence post cut to below normal ground level, but it was still extremely sharp, so I put a bunch of rocks and rubble around and over it, then buried all of that with dirt.
And I cut that stupid branch off too.
Then I cleared a path behind the brush pile, along the chainlink fence, getting rid of some other crap in that spot, like a long 2X4 with rusty nails sticking out of it, which went into the old shitty shed along with all the other rotting scrap lumber.
So!.. now it's much safer for kids and animals to be hopping the fence at the junction, and it's also possible to safely walk behind the whole length of the brush pile without tripping and falling and dying.
--<>--
With any luck, that whole brush pile will be gone before March is out, along with both mulberry trees, so... I'd love to have a wood chipper by then and get rid of the last of the saplings on that west fence line... and the juniper by the SCOP... and get rid of the SCOP.
This will really open up the back yard, and open up the sky back there.
And the hope is that that in turn, will make it a more favorable environment for field crickets.
And... that's how my Saturday is shaping up so far! it's 5PM!
°¦}
*SCOP is an acronym for, Studio for the Capture of Outdoor Phenomena, and is pronounced, "scope."
https://soundcloud.com/snoozefestaudio
I have a little hitching post out in the deep back yard to hook up Yvette's leash. Actually it's a plant hanger, but... now it's a hitching post. She just sits there absorbing the ambiance anyway, so this allows me to have two free hands and do some walking around.
I was looking at everything back there and, with a wood chipper, it's very doable to get rid of the last four saplings that are growing through the chainlink fence in back.
Their trunks would have to be cut up into firewood but the branches could all be easily fed into a chipper.
Same for the juniper sapling growing by the SCOP*. It's a nice little tree, but it's in an awkward spot, and it probably adds greatly to the din of the bush crickets.
I'm thinking of getting rid of the SCOP too. It's old and ugly and falling apart, and it too is in an awkward spot. Dad was sentimental about it, because his grandchildren played on it, but... he's gone now.
With the tripod and the basket I made last summer, I don't really need a platform for the S8. But it would be nice to have like... a little brick pathway and some more low voltage garden lights going all the way out to the back.
But how would those not be a pain in the ass to mow around?
Well, at any rate, I did pop down into the shop and bust out the sawzall and the chain saw to take care of a spot that had been bugging me...
Back in the northwest corner, where four property lines meet is this spot... where three chainlink fences meet, and there's an old utility pole for phone lines, that has little foothold hooks sticking out from the sides.
This spot is where all the kids from the other side of the block routinely hop the fences and cut through my yard, or my neighbors.
They grab the foot hook on the utility pole and get up onto the junction, because it's pretty sturdy there with the T-intersection of the fences.
And I don't mind them doing that, but on my side of that junction, there was some stuff that looked a little dangerous.
There was a steel fence post, from the old wire fence we had, which I could not pull out, because of some very thick woodbine roots underground had locked it into place.
But several months ago, the kids had bent this fence post down toward the ground, in an effort to get it out of their way. So that, and a protruding stump from the woodbine just looked... like an accident waiting to happen.
There was also a long branch sticking through the fence in that location, that they'd bent out of the way, but again... they couldn't break it.
So... I had to use the sawzall to cut the fence post as low as I could get. Then I used the chainsaw to cut the woodbine stump down further. Then again with the sawzall on the base of the fence post.
I did this until I had the fence post cut to below normal ground level, but it was still extremely sharp, so I put a bunch of rocks and rubble around and over it, then buried all of that with dirt.
And I cut that stupid branch off too.
Then I cleared a path behind the brush pile, along the chainlink fence, getting rid of some other crap in that spot, like a long 2X4 with rusty nails sticking out of it, which went into the old shitty shed along with all the other rotting scrap lumber.
So!.. now it's much safer for kids and animals to be hopping the fence at the junction, and it's also possible to safely walk behind the whole length of the brush pile without tripping and falling and dying.
With any luck, that whole brush pile will be gone before March is out, along with both mulberry trees, so... I'd love to have a wood chipper by then and get rid of the last of the saplings on that west fence line... and the juniper by the SCOP... and get rid of the SCOP.
This will really open up the back yard, and open up the sky back there.
And the hope is that that in turn, will make it a more favorable environment for field crickets.
And... that's how my Saturday is shaping up so far! it's 5PM!
°¦}
*SCOP is an acronym for, Studio for the Capture of Outdoor Phenomena, and is pronounced, "scope."
