Trees And Other Things

The cost of landscape companies is waaaaayyyy more than $25 an hour. Maybe they pay the help that to keep them but there is advertsing, insurance, equipment maintainace, stuff that I won't use, to pay for. And this may take a guy a couple days of labor intensive work.
Kids don't want to do it.
Then we have Nerball to the North who will fight if I touch any of his scrub as our land abuts each others so you practically need a scissors to do the north fence. He does what he wants to my land including dig a 50ft dead end trench to let some water out of his pond. He is such a pain in the butt. Otherwise I was thinking of using a company with heavier equipment to clean up.
May end up just me and my DR Trimmer.

 

Likely nobody even knows you are looking yet. John Brunner's suggestion (Next Door) is a good one. There is a bulletin board with jobs posted, at a locally owned hardware store and a feed store here. Similarly, people offering their services. It's a lot of work to find someone, and sometimes they don't work out. It's why I put things off, end up doing them myself like you, or not at all.

Nerball to the North sounds like a jerk. Kids that know about this job, and wouldn't volunteer, don't. Could be lots of reasons why.

Suppose the principal of the high school announced on the public speaker system there is a 1 day job at Mary's place for $25/hr for two people, next Saturday. We'll provide transportation. I know Mary. She is a nice person. She loves chickens.

I bet there would be some takers. Maybe even girls.

 

I have had some response. A girl who said she had her own tools showed up and was weeding around the house when I got back from picking up gas. I told her that, although it probably needed doing, I wanted the fenceline cleared. Leave the wild plums. I headed for the barn and she was on her hands and knees pulling long grass by the fence. I asked, Didn't she have a string trimmer? She said she was out of string. So I said she could used a nipper for the brush, to trim it down to the ground, . She came back with a manual hedge clipper. I said maybe she should come back tomorrow when she had the tools she needed. I didn't have any batteries charged.
Haven't seen her since. She said she was 50 but looked about 30.
Sigh.

 

Good morning... At 7:15 am it was still dark outside. Who knew?

Ryegrass has come up on about 30% of the back yard so far. It seems to happen overnight. Heavy morning dew this time of year, but I've also been watering heavily with a sprinkler in the evenings. We are in a surface drought here, with no rain in sight until the 13th. Only hand watering between 10 am and 4 pm.

When wet red clay dries out it leaves a crust as hard as brick. Hand watering will be good enough from now on. Catch the missed spots. I've never planted ryegrass where there was water available, and you could reseed the missed spots, and watch it every day like this. This will be fun.

Even the nurseries say not to plant any variety of Arborvitae if you have deer. They will destroy it. Stick with junipers they say. So it's back to Plan A, bring more cedars (junipers) in from the country. If they don't work out, nothing lost except time. It will be interesting to learn how to keep them pruned properly. I didn't do that with the old ones, so they are top heavy and empty of any foliage on the inside. New growth only occurs on the tips. I didn't know that.

From now to Thanksgiving is the best time to work outdoors here. I would much rather be working on the yard than indoors cleaning or plumbing.

 

Good Morning.

We try to keep the grass growing so to stop the yard turning into a beach like sand pit, but these two dogs have made parts of the yard look like it was bombed.
Its time here to cut the frontage too. Waiting fro the leaves to fall to put into raised bed and flower bed.
Much to do ,much to do!

 

Yes. Much. And this will only last until spring. Then I have to start sprigging centipede or St. Augustine like crazy.

 

Exactly what I was thinking, times have changed and so have people. The ones with insurance we can't afford ,the others may cost us 'everything'.

 

Not sure about cedars but don't Junipers provide the raw material for gin?
I have a huge one with great berries I keep meaning to use in a particular rabbit recipe I have yet to make.

 

The common Eastern red cedars (Juniperus virginiana) are actually junipers. There are male and female trees. The males have the pollen. The females have the blue berries. I have 7 large ones in the yard now. Looks like 3 males and 4 females. I wish you could tell the difference when they are little. Don't need any more pollen.

The berries sure do smell like gin. They are strong. Some birds like them.

Rabbit recipe? You mean cooked rabbit with berries? It doesn't seem like it would take very many berries.

 

I believe is is called rabbit confit. A very elegant recipe, as I read it.

 

I just took a look at a recipe. So many spicy things?

Shallot, garlic, bay leaves, cloves, whole black peppercorns, anise pods, juniper berries (16 per rabbit), cardamom, thyme, rosemary, mustard seeds.

Maybe it would be good with venison as well as rabbit. They always say to try and disguise the taste of venison.

 

Maybe she lied about her age,lol.