When we bought our house in December, it hadn’t been occupied for about three years. There were several aspects of the house that had fallen into neglect and disrepair. We addressed most of them during the winter and the spring, and spent most of the summer building our dock, improving the waterfront, and generally enjoying a cool swim on hot days.
Now that the weather is starting to turn cool, making swimming a little more frigid than fun, we turned our attention to the yard. It had at least three years’ worth of un-raked leaves and sticks, as well as overgrown ferns, small trees, and bittersweet vines, which meant that we were forever losing balls and frisbees or tripping over vines.
But, before we could begin, we needed a good breakfast. I made pumpkin muffins, and Kelsey made cream cheese icing, to give everyone plenty of energy. You can tell it was my first time making something pumpkin this season, because I forgot to put in the spices!
We all pitched in: raking, loading wheelbarrows, emptying wheelbarrows, picking up sticks, and mowing.
Kelsey divided the yard into four quadrants. We cleared the first quadrant on Saturday, and the other three on Sunday.
After clearing the first quadrant on the first day, we celebrated by hanging up the tire swing.
On the second day, we had our rhythm down, and were able to be significantly more productive.
We tried to intersperse some fun with the work—celebrations after each quadrant was cleared with lunch prepared by Rayleigh or a popsicle break. We also gave frequent wheelbarrow rides throughout.
After two days of hard work, we were finally done.
We celebrated a job well done by hanging up the monkey swing and taking a load off.
We’re taking the day off today, but we’ll start on our next project soon!
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