Garfield!

Woke up this morning and saw that blob in the backyard.  "OMG," I thought, "something died in the yard last night!"  I walked over to see what it was, and it turns out Garfield (who's been MIA for a while now) slept in the backyard last night!  I guess he's been keeping our yard mouse/rat free for long enough that he considers it home!

Garfield's Back!

Here he is, stalking something in the backyard again!  I initially thought that he was after the mint plant, but he walked right past it. 

Citronella!

I decided that one section of the backyard is going to be full of Citronella plants.  I've started rooting a whole lotta clippings in the kitchen.  Here's a picture of my forrest:

Clearing out the Backyard

Today, I spent some time in the backyard clearing out the jungle.  There is still a whole mess of plants around the yard, and I guess I'm tackling it one area at a time.  This time, it's the place right next to the kitchen door.  It took me about two hours to rip out all the weeks, roots, plants, etc.  Here's a picture of what it looks like now:

All those bricks in the bottom of the picture had a thick mat of roots growing all over and in between them.  It was a pain in the butt to cut it all cut up and pulled out.  I have a feeling this isn't quite over yet...

Spearmint Plant!

Today was a pretty exciting day! 

We went to Sloat Garden Center today to check out some plants.  My main goal was to get some sort of mint plants to propogate along the edges of the yard to build up a defense from mice and rodents (supposedly they hate the smell).  Sandra wanted to get some herbs and indoor plants.  We ending up getting a spearmint plant, a lavender, a cilantro, a rosemary, and a sweet basil.  I think except for the mint and lavender, these will be grown indoors.  We'd need to get a better planter if we were going to put the rest of the herbs outside. 

And I planted my spearmint plant in the yard!  It's the first plant from the group that we bought at Sloat Garden Center that we're planting in the yard.  I hope it takes.  It's an invasive species, and I hear they grow and spread really quickly.  Here's the little guy now:

It's not your imagination, if you noticed...  The top of the plant is cut!  I took a clipping to put in water to root.  This little guy's going to have clones all around the yard!

Hello, Garfield.

As I admired the jungle that is my backyard, I noticed an orange cat sun bathing on the stairs.  Hello, Garfield.  I see you!

Clearing Out The Yard

I had planned on cleaning out the yard all weekend. Mother's Day and Giant's games pretty much kept me from getting to it. I decided today was going to be the day, since there was no game, and garbage was going out tonight.

Then Hinojosa hit me up and said he needed more drywall. He'd cracked the drywall he picked up last week, so I offered to help him cut it and all. He got there around 5-ish, and we cut and mounted the drywall onto the frame he and his group had built. We used a drywall saw to cut the hole for his mechanics, and voila! All done. He asked what I was planning on doing, and I said clearing out all these weeds. He offered to help, and we pretty much massacred half the yard!

Here's what it looked like afterwards. Again, I didn't take before pics... :-(

We pretty much filled up the entire 55 gallon compost bin, too!

I had to get in and compact it a few times, but it did the job. We used the "Vaquero Grande" by Cold Steel to cut through the ivy and vines that were climbing up and over the fence from the neighbor's yard. I hosed off the cement and started scrubbing it, but it'll take a while to clean off.

I want to plant varmint repelling stuff back here - citronella and peppermint plants, primarily. We'll see how well the citronella does outside!

Planted a Citronella Plant in the Yard

I planted one of the Citronella plants in the yard today. I want to see how well it takes to the soil and weather back there. If this one holds and grows, I'll plant the other three clippings that I have!

Backyard Haircut

Hair was getting long, so Sandra shaved my head in the backyard.