The best kind of motivation comes from friends and family. Last weekend, Mike and I were lucky enough to have both groups at our home spurring us on to continue with some much needed yard work. As we’ve previously posted, Mike has been steadily ripping down the old rotted red fencing around the backyard, creating large piles in various corners of the lot. With all the extra hands we had available last weekend, we were finally able to move some of these to the dump!

Exhibit A. This was the fence removal in progress, as you can see Mike would move all posts to one location for removal later.

Our lucky helpers were Chris and Tara, who you’ve met previously in Let’s Pull Out Some Trees!, and my parents, Gary and Cindy, who were introduced in Family and the Washer/Dryer.

The morning started with a quick run to a friend’s house to pick up some items, mostly old furniture, that they asked us to take to the dump in one of our many anticipated loads. Winnie was very excited about sniffing these new treasures.

Just as a side note, Mike and I did have a brief discussion about keeping this chair that was destined for the dump, simply because we thought Winnie was attached. The chair did not stay, and Winnie has gotten over the loss.

This was the first load of fencing, notice how rotten most if it was. GROSS.

Mike’s happy place. There is something about Verlo men, and their love of the dump. I wish I could explain it, but after 7 years I’m still baffled. I’m sure it has to do with the curiosity of seeing what other people throw away. The rule is, NOTHING can come back from the dump.

After the fencing was cleared, Mike was able to get the big truck backed into the yard for the real exciting projects of the day: Stump Removal!

This was victim 1, an overgrown bush that we cut back last summer.

Going…

Going…

Gone!

Man is triumphant.

The offending stump.

See it now in motion:

Victim #2

This next removal was the first of our overgrown evergreens to go. Eventually we’ll be removing all 4 from the back of the lot, as they no longer are healthy, and could even be considered a fire hazard considering how dry they’ve become.

Attempt to pull out #1. Didn’t budge an inch.

Chris decides that we should be pulling from a higher location on the stump, so he creates a notch in the back for the pull cable to hook onto.

This fooled no one, he just wanted to use his chainsaw one last time that day. The notch did nothing.

Attempt #2 to pull. This didn’t work either. We ended up having to pull from another angle, and re-position the tow cable twice. Eventually the guys were able to get ‘er out.

Man is victorious once again.

Winnie gets lots of attention on project days.

The Other-Other Yard-related project of the day… the south side of the house.

I didn’t know we had hosta’s on that side of the house until this spring!

This was the area that Mom and I focused on for the afternoon. This side of the house was previously featured in Let’s Pull Out Some Trees! This was the side of the house that contained the ENORMOUS Bush, which was finally dug out with the help of my brother, David and our good friend, Eric. This was the “Before”:

Mike and Eric working to get the ENORMOUS stump out. You can see that we were still also working on fence removal.

Hard to believe, but this is progress. Slowly but surely our yard is emerging out from behind 30 years of shade.

After a long day of hard work we sat on our back porch and enjoyed a beer while watching the sun set behind the remaining back fence wall.

Thanks again for reading!

-Sara
          

Meet the new addition to the Verlo family, Winnie. We believe she is a Lab, German Shepherd, Doberman mix, and 100% adorable.

I’m cute!

One of the many joys of puppies is their boundless energy, and immediate unconditional love. It is this love and energy that keeps our patience in check when her crying gets us up two to three times a night as we are potty training. It was during this early potty training process that we realized how awful our backyard lighting situation was. Its the little things that perplex us about the previous owner’s tastes, including these beauties:

We have two of these sexy cans.

Originally we thought that the best solution would be just to install a decent motion sensor flood light.  But after getting the flood light up, we realized it shined directly in our eyes as we walked back into the house.  So, back to the store we go.

In this next photo, you can see we already had a smaller flood light by the garage door.  We decided to put the motion sensor light in that place, and put a decorative light by the patio door.

Old floodlight on the left, blinding new floodlight on the right.

After about ten minutes staring at the vast number of lighting options at Menards (which is completely overwhelming, by the way), we decided on this:

Mike wants you all to know that he didn’t turn off the breaker for this project (???).  Instead, he simply turned off the light switch and used a voltage detector prior to removing the old light to make sure electricity wasn’t still flowing through the lines.

The “will this kill me?” detector.

“Sara, take a photo of me for the blog.”

Here is our *second* new outside light.

We’ll have the flood lights on constantly so that they can be motion activated whenever Winnie decides to do her business on the far side of the yard.

This is what a grownup party deck looks like, kids. Don’t worry, we’re saving our pennies for major updates here as well.

Winnie decided to take a nap during the installation process (probably because she was so full after dinner – look at that belly!).

Puppy life is exhausting.