by Hope
The grass is growing again.
I think I could end my post there with all the pain that thought causes me. Don’t get me wrong. I love my gardening and my yard and all that…but the weekly maintenance is a pain. Last year, you all gave me a hard time about continuing to pay for yard service.
And I am trying to do better and take your advice. So I’m taking on my yardwork, and biting the bullet and going to purchase the lawn tools I need. And I dread it all the way around.
I do not look forward to:
- Having to maintain the equipment. As good as I am with computers, I am just as bad if not worse with mechnical things.
- The weekly chore in the heat of mowing the grass, weedeating and edging, and blowing the leaves and grass.
I am just dreading it! (It is so worth the $50 every other week to have someone else handle this stuff.) But if I’m going to commit to it.
Fix it first
My grass already needs to be mowed. So when April payment gets here, I will find a lawn mower to start. But in the meantime, I have got to fix some issues with my yard.
If you have been around a while, you know I have had a flooding problem. Well, in February, my daughter’s boyfriend came over and helped me clean out the culvert in the back. That has REALLY helped. But I still have a few areas that are of on going concern and have to be address.
The larger hole is about 3 ft deep and almost 5 feet wide, and probably more than that. This same hole has reoccurred 3 times over the course of our almost 7 years here. The city has come out twice to “fix” it. And it just gets bigger and bigger. The other two are places where the cement piping below my side yard is separated and exposed. So last week, my daughter’s boyfriend (actually now ex) was home from spring break. And he graciously came to help me address these areas of concern.
He dug them out a big (pictures) and then we came up with a game plan. (My dad contributed to this plan with his expertise as well.)
For the two, concrete pipe areas, I bought some flashing which we covered with dirt to try to stop water and debris from filling the pipe that is already overflowing when it rains. I was able to find small sheets of the flashing for $8 each at Tractor Supply. Everywhere else required I buy a whole roll for $50-60 that would have also required a special tool to cut it.
Now the larger hole, we dug it out a big more, the filled it with larger “rocks” that he had access to, cost $0, then filled it with dirt. I’m hoping with the rocks in their, it won’t reoccur. So far so good, one rain down and it held.
More plans
I’ve got additional plans for the yard this year. And he has agreed to help me with them when he comes home from school for the summer. (And yes, I did confirm with my daughter that she is okay with this ask.) But I know I won’t have the budget for too much.
But first…a lawn mower. Ugh!
Sidenote: this is the text message I sent to my 3 sons…
Hope is a creative, solutions-focused business manager helping clients grow their business and work more efficiently by leveraging expertise in project management, digital marketing, & tech solutions. She’s recently become an empty nester as her 5 foster/adoptive kids have spread their wings. She lives with her 3 dogs in a small town in NE Georgia and prefers the mountains to the beaches any day. She struggles with the travel bug and is doing her best to help each of her kids as their finish schooling and become independent (but it’s hard!) She has run her own consulting company for almost twenty years! Hope began sharing her journey with the BAD community in the Spring of 2015 and feels like she has finally in a place to really focus on making wise financial decisions.
Why in the world would they thank him – passive aggressive much????
I swear by my Greenworks electric mower! Also, I mow weekly (less if it’s dry), weed whack every other or every third time, edge a couple times a season, and I never blow.
good choice on yard work. You should be able to find a cheap push mover (only will need occasional blade sharpening) on Craigslist. Maybe this can be Beauties job at the house, you can can also rake instead of blow the yard. It is also great exercise!
Additionally, $50 per week is INSANITY. I live in one of the highest COL areas in CA (suburb of San Francisco) and I don’t pay that much for a blow and go on a 1/3 acre. And my guy gives himself yearly raises so he is making the money he needs/wants.
Hope bought a push mower at one point. I wonder what happened to it.
If I remember right your yard is pretty small. A little electric mower should do the job and then you don’t have to worry about gas/oil and not as much maintenance.
Look on Facebook marketplace for a used lawn mower. Make sure you try it out and they prove it works before you buy it.
Maybe this is just the way your family talks, but that text sounds mean to me. It’s not your sons’ job to take care of your yard work. A honey do list is something you give to a significant other who is living with you.
Totally agree that it’s only Hope’s responsibility to maintain her own home. Adult kids are all moved out at this point and they have no responsibility to have a “honey do” list. Hope, if you’re planning to rely on your children, then you better add Princess to those text messages also.
This is what I was thinking. I always thought a honey-do list was for husbands (typically). Not grown sons who are living on their own out of state!
Yeah, I hope it was in jest because… do you expect the twins to come back from Virginia to do this? Or Gymnast to come in from Texas? It’s one thing to ask for their help for like a house fire or something, but yard work (that really probably is at a point where it should be professionally worked on)?
Flooding issues? I’ve been around a while and maybe missed it but I don’t remember you mentioning that before? It sounds like you might have a sinkhole.
Also as someone who also lives in the south, depending on the rain you might be able to mow every two weeks, and mow early mornings, it’ll be coolest then.
Why should your sons thank someone else for helping YOU with YOUR lawn? The yard is not their responsibility, it’s yours.
And if you’re going to send a passive aggressive text expecting your kids to take care of your responsibilities, don’t be sexist. Girls can maintain yards too. Girls like yourself can also google “lawn mower maintenance”.
Yeah, a cheap mower could be easily found, I hope. As for the yard work, my mom would never send us a message like that, but to each their own. I am the only kid living at home, and she still doesn’t text me to say thank Tony, LOL! If they can come and help that would be nice, but I don’t think most parents expect their adult kids to do lawncare and any big chores unless they get asked to do so.
That text was not nice. Why are you trying to make your sons feel guilty about doing your yard work??? (And your daughters can do yard work as well…)
When you get some more money coming in is there a specialist that could advise on the flooding and drainage issues? Do these 3 areas all “line up”? I’d be afraid that the sinkhole is being caused by the drainage pipe. And by continually filling the sinkhole you are reducing the space where the water from the drain pipe should go. Possibly making the flooding worse. I don’t know much if anything about this, but since it has reoccurred several times it seems like a bigger job than to just continually fill the hole with trash concrete. Because the water has to go somewhere, if you’re filling the space where it normally flows who knows where it could reroute to.