Cleaning Up the Back Yard

If any of my guys wasn't working--as in employed--they'd be working for me.  At least, that was the goal of this summer.  So, one day in June, I put them to work.  Outside our back yard patio door, and to the right, is a large grassy area that is used very little.  We've stacked leftover hardwood flooring, pieces of an old picnic table, and several years' worth of Christmas trees.  Yep--we just threw them out there in January, over in the corner and out of the way.

This year, though, we cleaned up a bit to accommodate a nice stack of wood that my parents had given us when they moved.  That wood was at least organized along the back fence.  And, on a nice, warm day in June, we tackled the other chores for this part of the back yard.

Above, Danny used a saw to cut off the branches of the old Christmas trees.  It was pretty easy to tell which tree was from which year, as they were progressively devoid of needles.  My dad had come over with the saws and tools, and, never one for sitting down and relaxing, he joined in the fun by cutting the trunks down to size.

Here's one shot of this little-used patch of lawn.  It's such a big space, and given unlimited funds, I'd build one of those brick fire pits, a little stone patio, and have lots of seating.  Or, hmm, a small in-ground pool would be great here, too.  ;)

Danny and Joseph hand-cut all the branches into sizes that would fit our yard waste bags.  These went to the curb for recycling on trash day.

Here's another image I took of this corner of our back yard.  We stacked some wood for my brother to use when he camps; it's in that box in the below image.

The rest of the firewood was stacked along the back fence, below.

You can see the pile in the far corner (below)--that'll be eliminated once we start sawing the longer pieces of wood (oak hardwood flooring left over from our flooring job years ago).

See the tall pile below?  That's the remains of an old falling-apart picnic table.  We've put pieces of it out for trash each week, and it is almost gone from our yard.

We still have a lot of work to do back here, but a lot of the mess is gone, and things are looking much tidier!


Back to life,
Christine

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