Landscape Warfare

Urban Landscape

2010-08-19T07:29:00.000-06:00

I live in the city - not directly downtown, but about two miles out. Which isn't very far all things considered, still definitely inside The City. Within a small 4 block radius I can
-Buy a used car
-choose from just over a dozen restaurants
-buy flowers
-go to a liquor store
-visit one two bars (one a classic Dive Bar, the other serves awesome gluten free pizza)
-see a concert (most nights)
-get coffee
-buy a bicycle
-visit a tiny art gallery
-groom my pet (if I had one)
-get parts from a seedy used computer store
-get a tattoo
-take Karate lessons
-visit the science museum or the park
-Do yoga

Extend this a full mile and my options become staggering. Go all the way into downtown, a two mile radius? I lost track of my eating options when it hit triple digits. I have almost anything I could possibly need in a very small area - and I can walk to most of it. Grocery stores, movies, the zoo, museums. It's astounding.

It's always busy. There's always traffic on the main road. Even after most places have closed for the night it still has activity. There's a lull from three to five in the morning, but not much of one.

Every once in a while I look up though, and ... nothing. No cars. No people. No movement. Just for a moment in time.

Just for one moment every now and then, I look up and there are no people here.

And then all the noise returns.

-The G

Landscaping Reality

2010-08-04T07:04:00.000-06:00

When I started this the idea was solely to document my efforts to turn my backyard into an unkempt disaster that even some wild animals were afraid of into an actual place people would want to hang out.

But - I live in Colorado and significant parts of the year can be unfriendly to working outdoors. Namely the parts that are too hot and too cold. Which is about 80% of the year as far as I'm concerned. It's going to be a slow slow effort.

The yard comes with a house, which is . . . also in need of some landscaping. So I'm expanding the idea, this is about the Landscape of my life.

How cheesy is that? seriously, I sound like a bastard child of Martha Stewart and Dr. Phil.

Now I feel dirty inside.

So... now I'll document changing over my entire physical space, from the inside of the house and the outside of the house. With any luck it will involve a lot of donations to good will, trash bags of junk, and overall organization of everything from disaster to . . . livable if not pretty.

Trees and Grass made of Pain

2010-07-30T20:54:00.000-06:00

It's like a forest, only smaller

There are lots of trees on my property. I've got three in the back, three in the front, and these juniper bushes (three... I'm seeing a pattern) threatening to engulf my front porch. Also, in the back, there's a fourth tree on the neighbor's side on the property edge, actually one of mine is on the same edge. We share branches.

One of my trees is useful, it's an apple tree. I like the apple tree. Someday I will nurture it back to the point where it produces large apples I can do something like make Apple Wine with.

Then there's the "grass," I think it's grass, the tall knife like blades in the back are some form of sharp stalks of glass and razors. Also, thistle is in there lurking, waiting to shred the unwary. My backyard is currently not for those in less than anything but full combat armor.

There's a grape vine threatening to eat the garage, having crushed and digested the original trellis it was on, that I have to ~~destroy~~ figure out how to move to a new trellis. Someday it too will be nurtured back to making grapes so I can make Grape Wine.

(face it, after all this I'll need and deserve that wine.)

And a lot of green things I want to eradicate with napalm. Some of which I can only identify as "possibly carnivorous."

Step one is to get out the chainsaw and lawn mower and reduce the razor blades to stubble and cover it in something that will kill it all dead: newspaper and mulch/dirt. This is a trick I learned from my mom, who can actually maintain a yard and garden and make it look effortless.

Someday I will be as cool as my mom, until then I have a chainsaw to keep me company.

The G

Here Comes The Pain

2010-07-22T07:57:00.001-06:00

I own a house. It comes with a yard. It is amazing (not really) just how little neglect (several years) is required to turn a yard in to a jungle.

Like life, the less you pay attention to the small things the more overgrown with the unwanted things your ~~life~~ yard becomes.

Time to clean up. And thus I begin my war with my yard. Because I can't afford to just hire someone to do it for me - and I didn't buy a woodchipper for it to sit forgotten in my back yard - I'll be going at this DIY. It'll take time, sweat, blood, tears, yelling at the unfairness of it all, and chainsaws. Especially chainsaws.

It's also an urban dwelling (as in: middle of the city), with no HOA. The only real restriction I'm under is that The City doesn't determine any plant over four feet tall to be a "weed" and attempt to fine me. I could probably find out what they consider "weeds" but it'll be more fun this way. And I have a feeling "weed" will be "anything that The City Inspector Says is a Weed" . . .

Currently, it's a wreck. Like my sometimes much neglected life, it's not really a yard so much as a death trap. Apparently you can't just sit back once you intsall the grass and not ever worry about it again.

homeownership is ~~a sham~~ great ya'll.

Yards are also great excuses to buy all kinds of tools, like woodhchippers, chainsaws and sledge hammers.

This is where I'll attempt to document the chaos of turning an overgrown jungle into something yardlike over the course of what will in all likelyhood be many years. Because I am not rich, and have no idea what I'm doing beyond knowing how to properly use a Chainsaw (safety, people, it's all about safety), this will be done in many long drawn out stages. (also, I'm lazy)

With any luck I won't get ~~badly~~ hurt. I may even discover the body of Jimmy Hoffa in there somewhere. Who knows.

The G