Back yard bliss....someday!

A few of the delicious raspberries that grew in the garden before we took it apart! 

As with many things at our new (old) house, the backyard had been largely ignored by its previous owners. Our tenants did their best to keep it nice, though some of their hard work was undone by yours truly yesterday. Our tenants (who moved out in June) built a large raised bed garden in the backyard. Since it hadn't been tended in quite awhile, it was overgrown with weeds - some of them were simply giant. Jack & the Bean Stalk sized. See the photo below with our friends & the weeds (Dan is over 6 feet tall for some context).

Dan & Maddie with the 8-9 foot weeds

We signed the contract with Matt, our general contractor, 2 weeks ago & our permit application was submitted to the City of Evanston last week. Knowing that in the coming weeks & months work trucks will be using the back yard as a parking lot, we thought it prudent to remove the worst weeds as well as the raised bed.

Some might argue that Chris & I chose an odd time for intense manual labor in our new backyard, given the weather report of highs in the 90s, sunny skies, and high humidity. We probably wouldn't have chosen last weekend if our next several weekends weren't so jam packed with fun plans! 

Before our work - massive weed patch!

Before our work, you can barely see me over the weeds

We pulled, clipped, chopped, raked & hauled for over 4 hours. We filled seven 30 gallon yard waste bags. In some ways it feels like we didn't make a dent in the crazy weed patch; in others, it seems like we made a lot of headway! 

After our day of labor - look all that dirt :)

After our day of labor - I can't say "no more weeds" but there are far fewer weeds!

Chris needed to work Sunday, so I went back to Grant St. to attack the raised bed garden. My dad loaned me his drill to make removing the screws easier/quicker. In his infinite wisdom he also offered a hatchet and crowbar to knock the pieces of wood apart. Breaking stuff apart holds great appeal. It seems I now understand my nephews' inclination toward knocking down anything they build :)

In progress - busted down garden bed

After - breaking apart the roots and packed in dirt in the bed was for sure the hardest part - but voila! Done!

For those of you who I haven't yet complained to about it; our backyard is not just rife with your run of the mill weeds. We also have a bamboo problem. According to our old tenant, a "nutty professor" rented the 1st floor of our house for 20+ years and everyone suspects that he planted the bamboo. It is persistent & grows REALLY fast. I'm in the market for a loaner panda bear if anyone has any leads.....because they would eat the heck out of the bamboo! We are well on our way to backyard bliss. A long way to go to be sure, but we made some progress!







Ah! I almost forgot! Chris wanted to buy a gas powered lawn mower for our new house as soon as the weather warmed enough to warrant lawn mowing. I pushed for a "people powered" mower since I thought it would be easier to manage once the construction gets
underway. I won that battle, but Chris has now won the war! When we were at the house Saturday working in the yard, our neighbor gave Chris a "permanent loan" of his gas powered mower! Chris had Christmas in August! He is pretty happy with his new toy.