My husband is finishing running the mower and the push weed whacker out of gas so that we can store them until next spring. Essentially, I’ve been out in the yard the whole day trying to cut down what remained between what we affectionately call the ‘civilized’ part of our back yard and the hill below, mostly left wild.
Since we’re getting a little long in the tooth these days, we hired a young, strong highly recommended guy to cut down stuff to open our view back up and also create a fire break in the case of wildfire. He worked as he could on the weekends, holding a full-time job with the city and also taking care of the lawns of about 20 people.
I used one hand-held weed whacker which lost its cap for the cord about a third of the way through the job. My husband found a replacement cap and ordered it on the net. Meanwhile, I used the second hand-held weed whacker. It worked for a time and then I had to stop to pull out more cord, since what I was cutting was really too much for the little thing. After this happened for the fourth time, I stopped and came in to rest.
My husband got out our push weed whacker that looks much like a small lawn mower, saying it would make quick work of the remaining stuff. We couldn’t get it started, though. We decided that there was condensation in the gas and had to work with it for a LONG time to finally get it running. I used it and was able to do quite a bit more, but the land slopes pretty violently down across the yard and I didn’t want to end up on my head half way down the hill with various parts cut off. We also had stuff sticking up here and there that was too much for even the push around whacker.
Since the breeze was coming UP the hill, my husband took lighter fluid and a lighter down past where Shane had cut and lit it up while I stood ready with the garden hose with a sprayer attached.
The fire made quick work of the remaining stuff, and there were only a couple of small spots that were up in the yard portion.
My husband kept trying to get me to react more slowly to the fire, but to no avail. I did NOT want the thing to get out of control and burn the house down after we had spent all this money and time trying to prevent just that!
There’s still some neatening up we can do, plus more burning we can do if we get a really good rain, but the main part of the clean up is done now. We can again see the valley from anywhere in the back yard, and we have a reasonable fire break, making me feel a lot safer.
I had planned to do a lot more in the yard today, but I feel good that we at least finished one of the things on our to-do list.
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