April 8, 2021 The ground was waking up outside, and the trees were budding… now was the time to do some clean up in the yard. (No rest for the weary, as they say.) Along Sheep Road, we have an old stone wall with a small strip of what was once a somewhat tidy country roadside. I know this courtesy of Google Earth, but 10 years later it is full of small white pines, scraggy weeds and about 6 inches of matted dead leaves. I really don’t know what inspired me to take this on, but I guess I imagined I could knock it out in an afternoon. Ha!
Pulling up baby white pines was easy, and raking wasn’t horrible. But then the realization hit me…. what am I going to do with giant piles of wet, rotting leaves, sticks, dead weeds and so on? There were really a LOT of leaves, and they turned out to be very heavy. In the end, I raked batches of them onto a tarp with the intention of dragging them down the road to dump in a ditch (on our side and on our land). The first tarp I used was old and threadbare, and did not survive being dragged with a heavy load…. I upgraded to a much better tarp, and not wanting to ruin it, I loaded it with leaves and crap, folded it up like a wonton, held the corners and balanced it on top of a big plastic rake (curve up) and drug that down the road…. it was awkward, but worked. So I did it again, and again, and again….
Two days later, I finished. Woohoo. (WHAT was I thinking?) But it turned out very nicely in the end. 🙂 And even the culvert under the driveway got cleared.
Days like this remind me why people my age hire landscaping companies. Duh.
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