Backyard DIY: Working up to Subpar

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You already know that our backyard is a disaster area. You also already know that I'm cheap, so in the spirit of yesterday's brie and caramelized onion equation, we're going to do a little backyard version: 

U + (K - R) + S  = L

                                                                             $

Solve for L, where:
-U is the value for an ugly and quite possibly dangerous backyard
-K is the value of kids who need to play outside
-R is the risk of amputation (or at least a whole lot of slivers)
-S are leggy teenaged seedlings that will shortly want to move out of the house into a place of their own
-$ is the lack of $

(Don't forget to show your work).

Got it? The answer is back breaking labour. Lots and lots of it. Because no money + big plans = hard work, right?

Saturday morning was spent getting the basics done. Like removing the warehouse pallet and splintered chipboard "patio", complete with railway ties and, of course, railway spikes. Perfectly logical solution for elegant outdoor dining. Makes total sense.

Before

After

The morning was also spent raking up those last fall leaves and digging out the ridiculously fertile stump. And lets not forget mistakenly pruning the mystery shrub all the way back to the ground.

Before

During

The enormous hole

Also, in anticipation of tomorrow's post, there's some major and depressing food waste happening in the above picture. Wanna guess?

We also cut down a mysterious tree that we call "the bean tree", since arboriculturists we are not. (Yes, it's a word. Yes, I had to look it up.)

Before

During (Miss was clearly a big help)

After. Ah. So much better.

Some corners were left untouched. Not because we like wilderness or anything, we just ran out of time. This corner (minus the rescued pallets that are going to go to the basement to keep stuff off the floor) is someday going to be our own little bog. Right now, it's a leaf preserve.

So by dint of five hours hard work, we've got the backyard looking less like a disaster area and more like an undesirable neighbourhood. We're on our way up.

And by hard work, I mean working around this one, who also worked hard. At having fun.

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