Yard Cleanup Is THE Adventure

I've been busy lately and not really in the mood to blog. Even this post was a borderline decision on whether to blog about it or not. The thing is when you don't travel and enjoy retirement living at home, there are not many adventures. Nothing like I had planned on when I started this blog in October 2011. 

Should I change my Blog Title?  

So with little to no wind this morning and I will say this morning because I was finished with my project for the day by 11:27am ... after 2 hours of labor ... yard cleanup was THE adventure today. Connecting that activity to the title of the blog. I guess I might have to look up the definition of "adventure" to see if I am accurate or not.

It has been beautiful the past two days. Sunny, great temps, no humidity of course and by 4pm 78°. Yesterday I spent time back on the berm, cutting some very tall saplings down, trimming some limbs off the bigger trees but only as high as I could reach with the power reciprocal saw in one hand. I did lose my balance and fell backward down the berm once ... those soft pile of stems cushioned my fall and everything was fine. 

Last week after I had binge watched eight seasons of Dexter, but it was still cold and damp outside. Cold enough that I had no interest in doing much outside. So I decided I would watch all the seasons of Breaking Bad. I know that meth is a terrible topic for a show ... but the show itself is well written, award winning with great acting and a great story.

Watson seemed to like watching the show as much as I did. Yes that him watching the the show when I took that photo.

With a winter of snow, ice, high winds, fallen tree limbs and a flooded backyard, I needed to do some yard cleanup. It's nothing new, it's an annual thing here in Indiana but that was not the case when I lived only two years in Sierra Vista AZ. While I was picking up some of the larger tree limbs on Monday I was seeing a million small stems in the yard. So instead of picking them up one by one and putting them in the trash can ... I decided raking the whole yard would be faster and better for the yard itself.

Not only could I collect all those small stems, I could rake out dead leaves and the dead grass to expose clean dirt for the new grass seed later this week. I had mulched the leaves for the final time in December this year but a few of the large trees still had leaves on them ... so it's like they never stopped falling into the yard. In this photo I am raking towards the camera. 

It took me an hour and twenty minutes to rake up stuff like this inside the fence. Once I had the piles by the fence I tossed them over the fence line so I could mulch them with the mower. As I raked I was pretty happy with the results.

Of course I always have supervision on any of my projects. My next project is cleaning the brick near the ground. Some of the paint has worn off in other places, so this summer the plan is to paint those patches where the original brick shows. I still would like to do something different to that area between my closet on the right and the great room on the left. If you have any ideas, leave a comment.

Not only have I but you can see the hounds and dogs enjoy the summer temps. I fired up the pellet grill yesterday for a NY Strip Steak in the middle of the afternoon. I find I have to use that grill much hotter than their guidelines say for different foods. I am not sure I am a fan of the pellet grill. 

You can see I am making progress. This was the last area of the backyard project. 

Watson enjoys the 68° weather. He will be 4 years old next month. He was born the day before I moved from Sierra Vista AZ to this house.

A lot of damage to the grass this year but with rain this Saturday and some bright sunshine next week the yard should be on its way back for Spring 2025. 

This is the area I started the cleanup. Raking back towards the fence, then tossing it over the top. 

You can see the piles of leaves I tossed over the fence but I wanted to add leaves from the edge of the fence before I mulched them. I raked outward from the edge of the fence to where the mower could mulch them in a couple of trips. 

Yesterday I was cutting tall saplings and then the tops of them once they fell to the ground. I figure the less saplings I have the fewer tall trees I will have in the future. They could blow over with the increased frequency of severe storms like we have had in the past. I have had tree damage three times in almost four years that I have lived here. We are suppose to get our first sever storm of the year this Friday after midnight. 

When I say severe storms I am talking about high winds for sure and possible tornadoes. 

That tree in the photo looked healthy from the outside but not so much once I cut it.

Yet with all the cutting I have done, when I look up along the power lines and cable lines it is pretty clear now. Less chance of tree damage with those saplings that had long limbs, blowing over on the lines or on my fence. A lot of the larger trees lean towards the field in back, not towards my yard.

While I raked I heard different kinds of power equipment. I figured it was tree companies cutting down damage trees from the winter storms. Yes that was a couple of months ago but these tree companies are so busy, you have to set an appointment four to six months out. I know last summer my fence company had a two month lead time to repair my fence. I guess storms in this area are profitable.

At times that large crane was straight up and the noise coming from that direction did not sound like cutting trees. Were they digging a water well? I thought so until I saw that crane leaning right and then left again. Eventually there was the sound of a chainsaw.

Looking left through the trees on the berm was more heavy equipment. I had to pull out my Nikon 70mm-300mm lens for these photos.

That looks like a tree cutting company at work. ... Wrong ... they were taking the metal roof off.

Two weeks ago I received a letter from CenterPoint Energy telling me to call for an appointment to have my gas meter replaced. I had 15 days from the date of the letter which was February 20th. Receiving the letter on a Saturday I could not call for an appointment so by the time I called the following Monday I was on day 13 of that 15 day window.

Once I saw the old utility company name on the meter I figured they were just wanting their company meter installed. 2018 wasn't long ago, still a lot of electronics have changed since then.

The appointment was set for the day after the call. They would give me a 30 minute warning before his arrival, that would give me time to corral the herd into the garage so he could work in peace. He showed up early though and it was too late to move the herd into the garage from the backyard ... all five of them stood in the yard QUIETLY watching him switch out the old meter with the new ... digital one.

As he said "less moving parts" makes it a better meter. I'll see if that is true with next months gas bill.

One a couple of side notes .....

I have been thinking lately of getting back into the eBay business. I was a full time what they called "power seller" from 2005-2008. By 2010 with all their changes that did not work for me, I stopped selling and deleted my account. 

Since my downsizing in May 2019 before moving, I have have collected a lot of stuff I don't use, don't look at and don't need. Thus the idea of selling it on eBay. I spent Monday looking though the seller updates, then went to the seller forums to see what people were complaining about but the real test was. .... searching for something specific in their search bar.

Would what I was looking for show up in their list of similar or exact products?

Years ago that was not the case. I could type in the title for what I was selling and couldn't find it anywhere. I knew why but that is too long of a story to get into. Long story short I talked to a full time seller Monday night that had a lot of positive answers to my questions. He and his wife have been selling on eBay full time since 1999.

Would I have the time to list things, pack things to ship and etc around dog walks, bike riding, yard mowing and yard work plus keeping the house clean? That question still floats in my mind three days later.

Second note --- dog food.

I have done the cost analysis a few times and have blogged about it a few times but it hit me again the other morning as I am scooping out their breakfast. I had opened a new 40# bag for their lunch on March 4th. As of this morning that was only 8 days ago and I doubt that I have more than a couple of days of kibble left.

40 pounds in 10 days ??? The bigger bite size for large bred is $44.99 or the regular size kibble is $40.99 for a 40 pound bag. I buy two bags at a time. One thing good ... after 12 bags purchased I get a free bag. For every $300 I spend I get a $10 coupon.

The thing that scrambles my brain cells is when my vet says the old cheap Purina Dog Chow is good enough. Watson's breeder and Cletus's handler feed all of their bloodhounds Purina Dog Chow. Of course with them cost is a factor because they have anywhere from 4-6 full grown bloodhounds. They both tell me they have Purina Dog Chow delivered by the pallet. 

But when my vet says that ... then the good reviews by consumers on Amazon or Chewy ... and good results the few times I have fed that to my current crew of hounds and dogs ....

$89.98 looks worse than $56.56 plus the PDC had 4 pounds more to a bag every trip I make to the store. 

Thousands of dog owners have nothing good to say about Purina Dog Chow but they have been making that grade of dog food for 80 some years!!!! Some owners swear by it and say their dogs grow to 15 years old and ate nothing but that. Other dog owners say it's crap and should never be fed to a dog. 

My dog that I had growing up in the 60s ate table scraps and canned dog food. Died of old age and never had health issues, tumors or cancer.

99% of the time since 1987 I have fed my hounds and dogs what some call the premium dog food ... no corn no soy no animal by-products ... fruit and veggies along with meat and meat meal ... they haven't grown past 12 years old ... all have had tumors or cancer when they died ....

Good food their whole life or is dog food a marketing scheme?

When the dust settled in my number crunching, buying 3.3 bags per month, their $10 coupons and 3 free bags over the course of a year ... that average cost per bag dropped from $40.99 to $35.86 ....

Is that food worth the extra $6.98 more per bag? Or am I fooling myself thinking the more expensive dog food is better for them in the long run?

My vet does not think so.

That is all from "the tropics" of Southern Indiana ... is yard cleanup really an adventure?