Friday, January 16, 2009

A Reverse Before and After

I've noticed a very strange, unexplained phenomenon....when work is busy, my posting ratio mysteriously dwindles.....weird...

Needless to say, work has been busy, but since it's a 3 day weekend, I'm going to be productive!

I sadly wanted to share a reverse before and after. That doesn't make sense, you may say. Think of it as the young, smiling, smooth-skinned woman on the left screen...add magic potion cream - and voila! - she's old, wrinkled, and not-so-smiley. That's what happened with our backyard.


We tried. We really did. But luckily we didn't try as hard as we did on the front. You will remember this post where we did a little bit of landscaping, drainage, and grass seeding in the backyard. Throw into the mix two dogs (and by now you know the wrecking ball that is Roxy), too much shade, and well,... bad luck.

And you get this depressing masterpiece:





Granted, I took these pictures a few days ago when the sun hadn't shone for like, two months - it was overcast/rainish/gross. But that's irrelevant. The grass all died. Don't be deceived by the green - it's all clover.

But it doesn't stop there. First Roxy went for the hostas. Next she honed in on one of the gardenias. We replanted. She tore it out again. We gave up. She just reallllly didn't want that one gardenia planted there, I guess. The others (so far) have miraculously gone unscathed.

The shady middle of the yard suffered the worst losses. Of course, that's where the water likes to pool when it rains - which it has done EVERY SINGLE DAY for the recent past. (Ok, so not every day, but it has been a very bleak winter!). So when it's wet, I have 8 dog paws to wipe off every single time they come in from outside. A dirty towel lives by the door.

So, our battle plan is to bring in a whole lot of pine bark chips and cover the damage - or at least the muddiest parts. My kitchen floor can't take much more abuse.

Perhaps in the summer, with the help of Tony's fancy new saw, we can build a deck. It would add value, make us happy, and solve the mud/non-grass issue. But until then, if you come over, don't look in the backyard. It's just too sad.

Live and learn, I guess!

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