2005-01-15

But first off, I decided to have mercy on the poor wooden table that'd been left outside on the front porch. Back when there was a roof over the front porch, I wasn't very worried about it - but it's been getting rained on directly for a while, and was starting to exhibit some swelling. I brought it in out of the rain, and it now provides a much-needed right rear speaker stand. As well as a convenient place to leave cups and glasses, where they aren't likely to get knocked over.

So, as you may have seen in the Wind Damage pictures, the fence behind my place was pretty much obliterated. It never looked that good to begin with, but when it was lying down on its side, it just looked outright trashy. As this is the first Saturday since it finally stopped raining last week, I figured that I'd take care of the yard so the trailer park doesn't get annoyed at me and decide I've got like 24 hours to either fix the fence or pay a contractor of their choice to do it. I don't know if they'd do that or not, but I think they have that as an option.

I used the set of screwdrivers Dad gave me for my birthday to remove the weird wicker-like material from the fence, then unscrewed the beams which constituted it. The fenceposts were pretty lame too, although I can't fault them for not staying up - they hadn't been sunk into the ground the way they should have been. The ground was still a little damp, but not very. I talked briefly with my neighbors on either side, and was informed that no one had really liked that fence much anyway. So, I took it down entirely, and now the back yard looks a little better - but now everyone can see the overgrown grass, weeds, etc. While they were a little tall before, now the rain has caused them to grow quite high. The parts of the fence are now propped up against the wall of the house, and the posts are in front of the shed. Perhaps I'll remove the concrete feet from the wooden beams, and store them inside the shed.

As an unrelated note, now that the fence is out of the way, I can get the cable guys to come out and re-wire the cable drop to my house. I found the junction box today, which was a truly impressive heap of corrosion which I'm surprised any signal actually penetrates. That having been said, there's nothing like a plasma screen TV to show you just how bad your cable connection really is. I intend to call up the cable guys on Monday to see when I can get them to come out and replace the wire. Before they do, however, photos must be had. The bad-ness of this wiring must be seen to be believed.

So, the next nifty thing is the hedge trimmers. I went to Wally World so that I could take care of the numerous grass runners which had made their way into the driveway. I ended up using it on all the various tufts of grass which had grown up taller than the surrounding grass. I'm hoping to avoid mowing the lawn for a while, if I can just trim the tall grass plants down a bit. My lawn has numerous areas where the grass is dead, for one reason or another. I'd like to have a lawn that's fairly well covered, rather than a clumpy one - mowing it down on a regular basis just seems to me to impede the grass's spread.

I was able to use the hedge trimmers to trim back the bushes which have been spreading lately, and also to recover a brick walkway. There's a winding path of bricks leading from my driveway to the back yard - I'd always thought it looked kind of ratty. Now that I've actually trimmed the grass back and re-established the lines a little, it's looking quite nice. In fact, I didn't know when I bought the place, that it was overgrown like it is.

I managed to get a bunch of weeds pulled as well - including some large ones which I had never managed to actually pull when the ground was dry, as the stalks just broke off whenever I tried pulling them. I guess there can be some small advantages to the veritable flood we've had in SoCal lately.

My next hedge trimmer adventure, will be the palm trees by the driveway. They've been spreading quite a bit lately, and are in dire need of resizing. At any rate, tomorrow I plan to take pictures of the aftermath of my home improvement endeavors.