Bushwhacked

Project Holy Moly! How Did Our Yard Get Like This?! is well under way. After an insane morning of Project Please Stop Bothering Your Sister (and while you're at it, the whining can stop, too), I let the kiddies loose in the backyard and got to hacking.

Phase One of our backyard reconstruction is pretty simple, and actually unbelievably therapeutic as it consists of mostly hacking and whacking and trimming and pulling and yanking and heavy-duty snipping our way through overgrown bushes and trees and plants that seem to have no beginning or end. And if they do have starts and/or finishes, they have been so completely overtaken with long, invasive, toxic strings of ivy that has such a density it proves to be impervious to even the most aggressive chomping of the hedge clippers.

My yard debris clean-up crew couldn't have been more helpful. Stella was in charge of the ride-on bulldozer, and chipmunk chasing. It seems our yard, in its foliage-free-for-all, is an excellent habitat for tiny, furry creatures. Chipmunks. Bunny rabbits. Opossum. Hopefully our clean-up won't leave them too terribly displaced.

Heath, however, was an incredible help. He shouted instructions to his imaginary co-workers.

We need to pull these limbs into the pile! Let's load 'em up on the trailer, guys! We need a dumpster for this area!

Every limb I slashed, he picked up and tossed in a pile. Every pile that was created, he loaded into his vehicles (wagon, police car, buckets).

Of course, he desperately wanted to use my giant, digit-loss-ER-visit-waiting-to-happen trimmers. I told him I would do my best to find something suitable for a three year old (not sure if that exists). Eventually he suggested his boy scissors, a pair of preschool scissors, and helped trim by cutting leaf after leaf after leaf on a bush of undetermined type.

We spent most of the day and evening out there, minus a nap and a run. It will probably take the entire summer to get the whole backyard in some sort of landscaped order.

Looks like that will coincide perfectly with Project It's Summertime: Keep 'em Busy and Wear 'em Out.