Progress

I have always hated yard work, especially raking leaves and anything involving a shovel.

But we got some significant work accomplished over the weekend that makes me feel better about the place.

Maria and I raked the accumulated leaves away from both sides of the chain link fence that keeps our dogs safe and secure. Then I drove down to ACE Hardware and bought a new chemical sprayer, since our old one no longer worked. I loaded it with Roundup and treated the perimeter of the fence and also the outsides of the house. The point of treating the fencerow was to prevent weeds and grass from growing up and shorting out the electrically charged wire that keeps Dora from burrowing out.

I also bought a kit to straighten a Kwanzan flowering cherry tree that the neighbor's dog bent and nearly killed when he got loose and his chain got tangled around the tree trunk. It's probably going to take a season or two for the tree to adjust itself, but it's a start.

We also laid waste to several out-of-control shrubs in front of the house and now we can see the azaleas that were planted there about 10 years ago. I rather expected to flush out a snake or two when we went after the shrubbery, but none appeared.

I managed to mow the dogs' yard despite the holes Dora has dug chasing moles or gophers over the past couple of years. I have to raise the mower deck on the John Deere LA125 and creep over the tortured landscape and I worry that one of these days, it's going to wreck the mower, but so far, so good.

Here are some of the azaleas.