Preparing the Yards

Over the past two years, we've spent a lot of time working on Little Mount Vernon... not only on the house, but in the yard as well. And since we are Do-it-Yourselfers--no matter what the task--we tend to try to do as much of the work as we can ourselves. Preparing the yard has been an ongoing project. It's our respite from house repair. (Ha! Ha!)

Our First View of the House

The South Front Yard Before Clearing

Land Clearing

Dwight's first chore was cleaning the debris and sculpting the land around the house for better drainage. He had to remove years of accumulation of trees, vines, straw, pine cones, and leaves that had deepened the soil all the way around the house so that the dirt was up to the foundation vents.

Through the years, this side of the house was used as their private space with peeks at the house only available through the small driveways.

So Dwight used the tractor and blade to scrape around the house, pulling dirt from next to the foundation and pushing the dirt and debris back out into the yard, so the water would drain away from the house, NOT UNDER it!!! (The reason for the 6 feet of water in the basement when we bought it.) Then he took to the bulldozer and started clearing more of the yard.

Landlines

Of course, when you purchase property and decide to start working on the yard, one of the first things you SHOULD do is know where your landlines are. Little Mount Vernon sits between 2 highways so the north and south lines are clear. On the east and west sides there were concrete posts delineating most corners, but the lines between the posts were not so visible because they were covered in many years of brush and vines. Since we had a lot of land to clear, and it would take some time to get through all the debris, this was NOT our top priority. However, you should learn from us--make it a priority before you begin yardwork on new property so as not to encroach on your neighbor's space! When the line was finally run, we discovered that the large pile of old bricks that we had gathered from various locations around the property and meticulously concealed from view behind our hidden shed--where we thought was THE PERFECT spot--was on the neighbor's land! To make matters worse, NOT JUST THE PILE, BUT HALF OF THE HIDDEN (ROTTEN) SHED was over the line as well!!!! (At least we found this out before we rebuilt it!!!) So Dwight got to move that load of bricks AGAIN! We will deal with the shed down the road, but that's way down our to-do list!

And MORE Land Clearing

Now that our lines are marked, Dwight is back at land clearing. He has mastered the art of running the bulldozer, which was a must for this old house's yard work. He has pushed up over 20 years worth of yard growth with hundreds of trees and 6 acres of every kind of climbing vine imaginable!! Then he moved the trees, limbs, and brush into piles to rot.

Believe it or not, we actually hired some work done! We called our friend Rodney Faulling to come in and spend a day with his Gyrotrac grinder and chip away at the mound of rotting tree stumps and limbs Dwight had piled up in the yard--because who wants to burn limbs around an old house? (You might think at this point that we are stupid---but we do have better sense than to light burn piles of wood around a WOODEN house! Ha!Ha!) The Gyrotrac was the ticket! It did an incredible job of grinding the piles and mulching everything in its path. In one day it chewed up mountains of debris that would have taken days to haul away or burn.

The North Front Yard

South Front Progress

The North Front View From the Porch

And Now to Mowing the Grass

We are not finished with the clearing yet, but with what has been done so far, we actually have lawns now--a North front and a South front. And now that it's summer, the grass has started to grow. Did I say grass? NO, I meant GRASSES! And grow they do! The problem is, there's not one good blade of grass in the yard! And I would know!!! I've scouted it, on my hands and knees, actually searching for something!! Anything!! We have every kind of weed you could name from annual blue grass, to crabgrass, to kudzu to wisteria and everything in between! And when it's cut it looks pretty and green. But when it's not , it's a gnarly mess!

I told you we do it ourselves--even cutting the grass. Grass cutting is something I can do! Cutting the grass isn't really a problem. I like driving the lawnmower. I'm not sure it likes me though! Dwight hates for me to use his equipment--it seems like I always break something! It's not my fault the grass gets so thick in two weeks that the belt squeals and sometimes burns up! It's not my fault there are sticks and small limbs that I MULCH with the mower that get caught in the belts and pulleys causing them to break--I mean, I couldn't even see them under the deep grass! (I refuse to cut it every week!) The moral of this is--Dwight keep extra belts around, because there's a Karen on the mower!!!

So Dwight will don the dozer and tractor again and again clearing and sculpting the yard until next spring, when the yard will be ready for planting. And Karen will cut the grasses until next spring when we plant REAL grass on our lawn.