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| The Backyard |
Word to your mothers, children.
Without fail, the crappiest thing about having a house to take care of is dealing with the yard. Sure, when you own a house, there's always something to fix, but nothing bothers me more on a daily basis than looking at my yard and realizing that I'm a horrible human being.
My yard enjoys laughing at me on a daily basis and reminding me of the fact that I'm a failure. There's always something that needs to be done to it - it needs fertilizing, it needs watering, it needs weeding, it needs cutting, it needs to be torched to the ground, what have you. And, living in one of the hottest, humidest parts of the country - in the middle of Summer - you can imagine how much fun this is.
Our latest yard dilemma has been the sprinkler system. The previous owner had a really good system installed, and set up an automatic timer for them so that all four zones of sprinklers run at optimal times of the day for solid amounts before shutting off. There are also sensors on our room that prevent the sprinklers from ovewatering the yard - if the sensors determine enough rain has fallen over the course of the last twenty-four hours, the sprinklers will not turn on. That's cool with me, as I hate that yellowy over-watered grass that sprouts up around gutters.
Anyway, there were a couple sprinkler heads needing to be replaced when we moved in - perhaps the field hands ran over them with a mower, who knows. I was able to replace two of them myself with little issue (thanks, YouTube), but the third has become a thorn in my side that I can't remove. . .
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| This sprinkler head lies in Zone 2, which covers my front lawn between the sidewalk and the street. The previous owner had glued it in where it screws into the water line, and when I tried to unscrew it, it shattered. Now I have the remnants of a plastic pipe broken off in the water line, and can't turn the sprinklers on without this head turning into a geyser like Ol' Faithful. I'm really happy about this. |
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| I think we're going to have to just bite the bullet and get a plumber for this crap. . . |
Sprinklers aside, we're having some issues with the trees. Some of them seem to be blooming now, which is cool and all, but that means that we're bound to have a bunch of fruit lying around our yard soon. I'm not looking forward to that - it's going to be a huge mess. I need to buy fruit/citrus tree spikes to help fertilize them, too. . . but seeing how I practically own an orchard now, that means I'll have to buy a crap-load of them. I'm not sure what season to plan them in, either. . .
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| Hough Gardens |
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| The previous owner, for whatever reason, decided to plant some red peppers underneath a citrus tree - not sure why, exactly. My guess is that they need more shade. . .? |
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| Red peppers - still rather small |
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| I think these are some type of tangerine. . . |
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| Lemons |
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| Limes |
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| Some type of citrus - grapefruit? |
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| Tangerines |
I look forward to a lot of things as summer approaches - namely the time off and freedom to do whatever I want (which is usually writing, travel, reading, video games, sleeping, etc.). Equal to this, however, is my backyard. I
love my backyard. The previous two summers found me lying out in the sun, smoking a pipe, and reading my
Kindle, and this summer is no exception. I spend hours everyday doing just this. . . that, or swim.
Purchasing a pool was probably the
best investment we ever made (kids being a close second). More than anything else, the pool is the
Savior of Summer:
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| Abby has zero fear of water. This is both good and bad. |
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| Bizarro Bug. Still the craziest sprinkler I've ever seen. |
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| As it turns out, these purple flowers are actually a hanging plaint hung underneath a much larger flower tree. This makes sense, regardless of how weird it is - the rest of the flowers are stark white, and it always creeped me out how this one corner of the tree bloomed purple flowers. . . |
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| I forgot what these are called - Snap 'Ems? You know, little
paper sacks filled with gunpowder that you can buy for a buck around the
Fourth of July. Still a kid favorite. |
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| No idea what Kris is doing here. . . |
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| All hail Summer. |
- Brian
My yard enjoys laughing at me on a daily basis and reminding me of the fact that I'm a failure. There's always something that needs to be done to it - it needs fertilizing, it needs watering, it needs weeding, it needs cutting, it needs to be torched to the ground, what have you. And, living in one of the hottest, humidest parts of the country - in the middle of Summer - you can imagine how much fun this is.
Our latest yard dilemma has been the sprinkler system. The previous owner had a really good system installed, and set up an automatic timer for them so that all four zones of sprinklers run at optimal times of the day for solid amounts before shutting off. There are also sensors on our room that prevent the sprinklers from ovewatering the yard - if the sensors determine enough rain has fallen over the course of the last twenty-four hours, the sprinklers will not turn on. That's cool with me, as I hate that yellowy over-watered grass that sprouts up around gutters.
Purchasing a pool was probably the best investment we ever made (kids being a close second). More than anything else, the pool is the Savior of Summer:
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