Before the trees leafed out in April we decided our first task had to be an attack on the jungle of vines in our backyard. They were taking over the trees, and although they made a great privacy fence, they were out of control. As we started yanking the vines out of the trees, our neighbor decided to go at them with a chainsaw. Almost 20 feet high and 10 feet deep in his yard, he just cut them all out including the trees they lived in. Now we get a nice breeze and have a wide open view - it's a blank palette for us to landscape as we like.
For the past 3 weekends Paul has been under the house reinforcing floor joists and building new piers. When the attic was refinished years ago, the additional weight was too much for the non load bearing walls. This caused a sag of 1 and 1/4" in some areas. Now they are reinforced and he has started jacking up the house, 1/8" at a time. Crawling around in the dirt with 18" of headroom hasn't been pleasant and he can't wait to begin work above ground.
While Paul has been under the floor, I've begun scraping and sanding the trim and doors in the living room. Several coats of paint are on the trim, but the last one is the worst - heavy latex glopped on without sanding first. I have a little routine going: after working inside all morning, I head out into the yard for the afternoon. Old beds of some sort were lined with broken chunks of cement which I hauled to the curb for pickup before tackling the weeding. Raking uncovered a partial brick path and a few cement pavers, along with several buried cement blocks. (I also dug up matchbox cars, a spoon and marbles-opening a little door into the lives of previous owners.) A friend gave me several vegetable plants so I dug up a little garden and our herbs are growing in pots waiting for a place to go in the ground.
Now that we've started, the list seems endless - actually it is endless - but we'll keep plodding along one step at a time.
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