Taming the Jungle, Unleashing the Beasts

We had almost four days of sunshine this week! Amazing!

We wisely took advantage of the drop in relative humidity to somewhere below 100% by tackling some yard work.

There were three major yard issues that needed our immediate attention. First, the vines under our house which are slowly eating our foundation. Second, the lawn that never stops growing. Third, the cats were loosing their minds without access to the great outdoors.

The vines will be familiar to anyone who has ever had house plants: Pothos, sometimes labeled as a Philodendron (actually a Monstereae but same family as Philodendrons). This vine puts out tons of air roots, has a waxy cuticle which inhibits herbicide uptake, thrives in low light conditions, climbs aggressively, and the stems break when you pull it. I'd call it the tropical version of crab grass, but crab grass loves the tropics, they're just good friends. These vines demolished three posts in our foundation before we even bought the house. To prevent further damage, I applied an herbicide to the entire crawl space two weeks ago. The die back was slow and uneven.

After waiting over two weeks for these vines to curl up and die, I resigned myself to some claustrophobic/contortionist weed pulling. We have a carpenter coming to repair the foundation and the joists under the porch this weekend, I want the area he'll be working in as clean as possible. Over the course of two days I have pulled 95% of the vines under our house. The rest I'll get when I rake out the leaf litter, trash, and rodent skeletons tomorrow and Thursday. Between the vines and crap under the house and our moving boxes, I've got a pretty decent sized compost pile started. The leaf litter should really help kick-start the composting process.

And now the lawn. Something many of you may not know about me: I'm extremely conflicted about power tools. While I love a labor-saver (power saws, drills, blenders) I resent any tool which makes a great deal of noise doing a job a healthy person could do quietly and just as quickly (I'm looking at you leaf blowers). I don't like vacuum cleaners, they're loud. I don't like gas mowers, they're loud and fling rocks. I don't like leaf blowers, they're loud and toss grit and don't solve the problem. I'd rather sweep, I'd rather rake, I'd rather push a manual reel mower.

So we bought a manual mower. Why? Well, because after debating the pros and cons of man-powered scythes and gas-powered grass-pulpers for the better part of a month we went to Home Depot and check out their 20" manual mower. It wasn't any heavier than the cheapest gas mower (which isn't self-propelled) and they cost about the same. Our carbon-guilt eventually made the decision for us: manual mower. Good news, it works great. Our lawn looks almost as well kept the others on our street. Success! I can mow without feeling like I need goggles and steel toes, I don't need to buy a gas can, and we could mow at 7am on Saturday without pissing anyone off.

I also planted a couple of agave seedlings I collected from our rental in the rainforest. They're small, but they'll grow slowly!! Ryan pulled weeds along the driveway. I'd post pictures, but for the amount of work we did, the results are depressingly spare.

Finally, the cat door. Of course, the first project we undertake that actually involves modifying the house instead of just cleaning it up would be for the kitties. Selfish brats, my bathroom is a coffin, and they now have a fabulous cat door with two shelves installed on the sheltered kitchen window by the back door. They can now go outside* and check the weather without ever getting their feet wet. Installing a pet door into a copper screen is significantly more difficult than into nylon screen due to the lack of "give" in a copper screen and the relatively brittle nature of the individual wires. Now that it's in there, I don't think it's going anywhere for a good long time, though. Chuckles has thanked us by bringing large cockroaches into the living room and chewing off their legs. The damn things are longer than my thumb and they never die. No frogs yet, though. If anyone would like to make a guess as to when we find our first dismembered amphibian leave a date in the comments; closest guess will get a box of shortbread cookies. I'd send you the frog, but there are federal and state laws against that sort of thing.

Next on the list: replacing light fixtures, removing a kitchen cabinet, wiring, and carpet removal.
*It took the kittens a total of 24 hours to master the new cat door. It took Sadie 3 days, and she had one just like it for two years on Maui. I should be grateful, it took nearly six weeks to get her to use the Maui cat door on her own.