This past weekend we were actually graced with the sun’s presence for almost an entire day so I The Brit and I decided it was high time to mow the grass and do a bit of weeding in the backyard. We also set up our new composter but that was pretty much a non-event.
Once Alex was done terrorizing the dogs with the lawn mower (only slightly more fun than scaring them with the vacuum cleaner) I set about separating the weeds from the keeps in the mess that is the back garden. The event certainly didn’t inspire me to join the garden conservancy league (at least not if it means volunteering to work in an actual garden.) A little bit of back story is probably in order.
I spent the majority of my childhood in Carson City, Nevada. My family lived in a nice home with a gorgeous yard, both front and back however, due to my mother’s love of gardening I was rarely asked to pick up a trowel and become one with the earthworms. Don’t’ worry, I had numerous other chores to contend with but thanks to my numerous allergies, most of the tasks on my chore list were of the indoor sort.
I left Nevada for Arizona about 10 years ago and needless to say, I fully embraced the xeriscape style of landscaping. Weeding was minimal and watering was practically non-existent. The desert certainly has its own distinctive beauty but I’ve always loved a greener scenery, hence one of the reasons we moved to Oregon.
Our house is located on an oversized corner lot and while the front, which we recently had redone, requires minimal work, the side and back yards are a challenge straight out of Jason and the Argonauts. Our home was owned for many years by a married couple named Esther and Harland who loved nothing more than working in the garden. After Harland died, Esther continued to keep the English countryside type garden in top shape. Sadly, Esther eventually passed away as well and the house was sold to a man who used it as a party house and crash pad for himself and his myriad of friends. After a year or so of that, the house was sold to the person we purchased it from. This individual never lived in the house because she bought it for investment purposes. To say this person did a half-ass flip on the house is an understatement but I’ll save that rant for another time. Basically what I’m saying is that ever since Esther died, no one has taken care of the back garden aside from the occasional mow. So now we have a once beautiful (and believe me, on a daily basis there is some neighbor or passerby who has to comment on how “gorgeous the garden was when Esther was here. She worked on it every day, you know”) that has fallen to a state of disrepair.
While I appreciate the wild English garden look, it’s not my favorite garden style and I am well aware of my limitations. This time next year, the backyard will have a distinctly different look to it. (Think more Zen with some flowers and a deck to put the grill on.) In the meantime, however, I feel obliged to get out there among the spiders (oh, how I hate the spiders) and pill bugs and rid the flowerbeds of the weedy interlopers.
I spent a relatively nice hour and a half digging around and only encountered 3 spiders, 15 or so pill bugs and a couple of small slugs. I foolishly started thinking to myself, “this isn’t so bad” when I encountered the king (or queen) of all slugs. I had just kneeled down to dig out a particularly stubborn group of weeds when I forearm brushed against something cool and slimy. I looked down and saw a HUGE black and green banana slug. I immediately screamed and chucked the weeds I was holding over my head and ran for the side door. I’m pretty sure I startled our next door neighbor who outside sunning and I know I freaked the dogs out worse than the mower or the vacuum. Too bad it wasn’t captured on video .
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