Picking up Sticks

The yard at Glenlochan has been sadly neglected for many, many years and, since it's been a construction zone for the past three, precious little has been done to it by us, either.  We are slowly beginning to tackle it.  Rob planted grass seed last fall, which is sprouting like crazy, and he recently re-seeded the entire yard.  He picked up branches, trimmed the boxwoods that we really want to keep, despite their scraggly, non-uniform appearance, and picked up the many things that a long winter had deposited in our yard.

On a recent sunny day, Joe and the other Rob came out to give us a hand in clearing all the horrible brush that had been growing in the yard unchecked for so long.  It was a lot of work, marked by malfunctions.  The wood chipper we rented refused to work and had to be returned, the chain kept coming off the chainsaw, which led to much down time for the necessary re-assembly.  Despite the issues, a lot was accomplished due to good old fashioned elbow grease and fire power (and non-power tools like pruners and rakes).  Where was my machete when we needed it?  We couldn't locate it, unfortunately. 

This is the kind of mess with which we were dealing - lots of prickly brambles throughout, so it was easy to get "caught" and there was lots of de-tangling of various people throughout the day.

Tereasa and I provided lots of helpful encouragement!

Action shots:

And, at the end of the day, we had many large piles like this one - just waiting for when the wood chipper is repaired and ready to reduce these piles to mulch.

Like the house project, this yard will be a long term project - a marathon, not a sprint!