Landscaping: Not

Three previous calls to the landscaper who was supposed to begin my yard project January 29 have gone unanswered. Last night, however, the phone was answered. “Sorry, we’re on another job, for a big hotel, so we won’t be able to get to your job for about a month.”

No, that doesn’t work for me. Go work all your other jobs because you no longer have a job at my home.

This morning, I was up early, opened the front door to let the air in, and saw that my mailbox had been pried out of the ground. In the first year I lived in this house, my mailbox was knocked over and destroyed 3 times, so I bought one of the plastic boxes and an 8’ 4x4, dug a hole, and filled in around the post with concrete. In the last several years, although many of the other mailboxes on my street have been destroyed, mine has been left untouched.

Last night, about 9 pm, my dog was going crazy, and whenI looked out, I saw a group of black boys on the street in front of my house. Two of them had big 2 x 4s on their shoulders, which I thought was strange, but no way was I going outside after dark and confronting a group of teen boys with potential weapons. This morning, I discovered that they had used the 4x4s to bring down my mailbox, which had to take them some time and effort. It cost me a 1/2 hour to reset my mailbox, but the physical labor was better than a trip to the ER if I had confronted them at the time.

While I was at it, I also cleaned up the yard I hadn’t touched because the new landscaping was going in. I trimmed all the deadfall from the recent cold spell, pulled out the weeds, and actually took the time to remove the barrier to the large gate on the north side of the house. It’s not that I plan to use it, but if I need to open the gate, it would not open with the rocks and other materials piled in front of it.

I also scooped up all the piles of dog poop, which really pisses me off because I don’t let my dog out to crap on anyone else’s yard, so why do all the uncontained dogs come to my yard? Once that was finished, I also filled in some holes where I removed dead plants. I was going to replant, but why: that’s just another thing to water, prune, and care for, so I filled the holes in and will just have grass again.

A friend is stopping by and I’m going to take her with me to the big box home improvement store, where I will purchase fertilizer and lawn seed, as well as replacement parts for the watering system. Once the sun goes down, I’ll turn on the water and see which heads I need to replace before leaving the water on to soak in the new seed. It should work, as that’s what I’ve done in the past.

There won’t be desert landscaping this year, but maybe I can do it myself next winter, my first winter as a retiree. Gives me something to put on the to-do list!