Thinking Ahead: Looking Forward to Doing Yard Work!

This might sound a bit strange but I'm actually looking forward to doing some yard work, in the weeks ahead.

As you probably know by now by now, Mrs. Denmarkguy and I are closing our small store this weekend. That also means I'm going to have more time on my hands, even though I will also be working from home.

One of the things I am really looking forward to is being home during daylight hours. Unlike many people who find yard work to be a stone drag, I actually enjoy being outside tearing at the weeds and the grass and getting my hands dirty. There's something very cathartic and healing about that process, at least for me.

Our side yard, ten days ago! Future home of our food patch...

Years of Neglect: There is Only SO Much Time!

One of the unfortunate side effects of having had a store and keeping commercial hours, is that I have tended to be gone during the day, seven days a week As a resuly, areas of our yard have quite simply fallen into a state of neglect. If you're never home when it's daylight it's very difficult to maintain a good size yard like we have.

I am not sure we really "thought ahead" about that, when we got into the retail business. Choices have consequences!

My wife and I have long had a dream of having a "producing" garden. Sure, we like flowers, and we like for it to "look pretty," but we also have a dream of making a garden that contributes to making our lives a little more sustainable; we want to grow more and more of our own food.

So far, we only have a couple of very small patches in use for our "urban homesteading."

To that end I have already started clearing the fairly large side yard that we have let grow over because there simply wasn't time to maintain it.

As of yesterday, most of the growth is gone. All the thistles and nettles removed at the root

Eventually, we plan to put a number of raised beds over here and start growing more of our own food next year.

Thankfully, one of our friends is in the roofing business, which will give us access to free discarded lumber from old roofs being rebuilt. That's a bonus, because that part of the project can easily get quite expensive!

Although I have been working on clearing the space a little bit day by day, next week I will be able to really tear into it and get it repaired and I will start making the beds.

So yeah, I'm looking forward to more yard work!

Thanks for reading!

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Created at 190622 10:32 PST
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