That grass is tall. Too tall, in fact, for our humble push mower. It couldn't do a thing. So we went to our friendly neighborhood Ace and bought a cheap weed eater.
It did the job.
We had one large, ugly pile of debris in the yard from the demolition of various fences. Jake split it up -- one pile for wood, one pile for metal, and also hacked down a fair amount of the wood to more reasonable sizes.
This brings us to READER QUESTION NUMBER ONE): How does one fix (or get fixed) the power cord to a power saw, if, say, one might have used said saw to cut through said power cord? Please feel free to suggest your answers in the comments. FYI, we are quite aware of the hilarity of this situation. And the danger.
So now we have two piles of junk. We're hoping to find a scrap metal/scrap wood place so we don't have to just throw them in the trash. The piles are now on the other side of the yard, and it's somewhat less unsightly. Here's a before and after:
Carter seems to enjoy this new spot, but he also seemed to enjoy crawling under the pile. We think he needs a doghouse, which perhaps we can make for him sometime.
Next problem: the hose by the garden (in front of the kitchen). It's a mess, as seen here:
And here is our solution:
The hose roll-up thing (with seat!) is a nice addition, but you might be wondering about that blue bucket. The problem is that the faucet drips. And it's this weird frost-free kind.
Which leads us to READER QUESTION NUMBER TWO) Does anyone know how to fix such a faucet? We can turn off the water from the inside. Jake tried turning that little screw in the center of the plastic handle, but it didn't seem to do anything other than hold on the label. It's a NIBCO Frost Free. (I'll try to get a better close-up image of it soon.) We're leaving it alone for now and hopefully the bucket will do its job.
And finally, here is our READER QUESTION NUMBER THREE) What should we do with these hydrangeas?
They are definitely getting new growth on the lower parts, but the woody stems look pretty ugly. Some of the old woody stems seem to have new buds and growth on them, while others seem thoroughly dead. Should we cut these off? Does anyone have any expert pruning advice for hydrangeas?
Finally, as an advance thank-you for all the thoroughly helpful comments I'm sure we're about to get, here is our 83 Durant Cute Overload photo:
Those are two of our neighbor kids and their duck. That's Dmitri, Junior, and Big Bird. Or, as we like to call them, Junior-Junior, Junior, and Junior Duck.
I posed the severed power cord question to the "help" desk at the Clallam County Co-op. He surpressed a smirk, did not ask the education level of the saw operator and said what he would do is just use some wire nuts and electrical tape. That would probably work, but it seems like you could do better. Duct tape over the electrical tape? I asked Chas to send you an opinion.
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