The Lawn Wrangler

I am an enthusiastic new homeowner. A lot of it's probably because I'm so late to the party when it comes to buying one's own home, so I've got about a decade's worth of dreams and plans to carry out. Whatever the motivation, though, it's like I'm on meth I'm so excited.

We've got some big projects in mind, but we'll have to wait for our Obama money to get processed by the IRS before we can embark on, say, finishing the basement. In the meantime I'm keeping myself occupied with the melange of little things that I can do for little to no money. Most of this has to do with landscaping.

I started out with the compost and raised garden beds. This was awesome because I got to buy a circular saw. I played it a little loose with the measurements, so they don't stand up to close scrutiny. They look OK out there, though.

The grass back there, as you can probably see, is poo. It's just weeds so we're trying to kill them, till it, and plant some new drought-tolerant grass. I've sprayed it all with round-up but so far it's hanging in there.

The grass on the south side of the house was in pretty good shape though. Naturally I went on all-out war against it because that's where I want my property-value lowering desert garden. First Round-up. I guess the grass was too long for it, though, because after 4 days it didn't mind a bit. So I tried the tiller. Here's a bit of a tip. Tillers, at least the one I was using, are not very effective against sod, even weakened as it is by my chemical warfare.

Four passes later and a lot of hoeing, pitchforking, and shoveling, it looks like this:

It's an interesting thing about Kentucky Bluegrass. We work so hard to keep it alive, yet it can be such a bugger to tear up when you want the crap dead.

Anyway, the plan here is to plant some native shrubs: a big mountain sagebrush, a bitterbrush, a mountain mahogany, some fringed sagebrush, and maybe an atriplex. Then I'll lay down a bunch of rocks between them and fill the spaces in between with native wildflowers and grasses. And some lichen on the rocks to finish it off.

This guy's been waiting for a place to live.

Bonus:

Ginny loves the dirt

I present the evidence

Exhibit A