Landscaping

So it was time to do one of the honeydo's highest on my list of things I really, really did not want to do. Taking out the Jasmine vine out front. Why now?'Cuz I don't want to end up like this guy.

This is what that mess looked like before I started. Each wing of the vine is 16 feet long and a little over 5 feet high. There are 3 main roots and, as anyone who has ever messed with these things knows, about a million little roots.

Started by pushing it over as far as it'd go because I'm a gorilla and that's what gorilla's do.

It's been up for 20 years or so and the 4x4's were rotted pretty badly. I pushed and pushed but surprise, surprise it completely failed to fall over and onto my trailer. It was pretty obvious some cutting was needed. Cue my double bitted axe because I broke my chain saw doing the fence. Yeah, I'm that guy.

Half down and ready to be dragged away. Yeah, that's my help laying on the lawn sunning themselves with the cooler nearby. Oh, turns out the vine was heavy. Really heavy. Like about 500 pounds of heavy. Oh, my aching 50 year old legs. That's about 2 hours of solid, backbreaking work. Well..... work for an old guy anyway.

Hey, I can see the street!

And the house.

One down and one to go. Luckily for me my timing worked out perfectly and Lu got home just in time to help out with half number 2. Tell me that isn't a frickin' mess.

Number 2 is gone and Lu poses next to her triumph. She finally got me to finish what I've been swearing I'd do for the last 15 years. Remember that bear in the procrastination poster? He's got nothing on Lu. Man, I need some window treatments now. Sigh.

For comparison. That trailer is 5 feet wide and 10 feet long. I'm 6 feet tall. That is a pile o' Jasmine. Unseen under that pile is about 1200 pounds of broken concrete and brick that used to be 2 benches (you can see one of them in the before photo). I'm thinking I'm gonna have to cough up a lung at the dump.

The After picture. Please ignore the partial glove on the left. I was lacking adult supervision at that moment. We can now see out and, even more importantly, it no longer looks like the entrance to the Brazillian Jungle Ride at Retarded Otto's Amusement Park. My neighbors will be so happy.

All this just so I can rent the place out and someone else will miss out on the joys of Jasmine pollen and Jasmine trimming.

Becoming a slum lord better be worth all this effort.

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