Aaaaaand finally I can call this job complete.
Not because I finally used up the alleged compost. There's still maybe four or five wheelbarrows' worth still in the driveway, covered with a disintegrating blue tarp.
But because... Well, it appears I never mentioned it here, but between Christmas and New Year's 2021, the sewer line running from our house to the street broke in two places -- one out in the street near where it fed into the municipal system, and one in our yard. The town fixed the first, and we had to hire someone to fix the second.
And the guy we hired left the yard somewhat less attractive than it was when he started. Among other things, his excavation brought up a whole lot of sterile subsoil laden with shale, which got spread on the top of the refilled trench, leaving a good chunk of the mulch-and-compost ring I'd put around the left-hand maple pretty much bare ground with rocks. Oh, and he didn't properly underfill the sidewalk slab he had to move for the trench, and when it went back it ended up with one end sunk six inches lower than the adjacent slab.
We ended up hiring a landscaper to come in, scrape off and haul away the sterile rocky soil, replace it with topsoil, seed it, and fix the sidewalk. So this is what things look like now, complete with weeds that encroached on the former mulch layer in the early part of the spring:
2022 - lawn repair.jpg (Size: 177.22 KB / Downloads: 52)
As for the last few wheelbarrows of "compost", we've finally decided we're going to use it to even out some uneven parts of the back yard. When that will happen... I'm not sure. But I'd like to do it before the July LBI excursion.
Not because I finally used up the alleged compost. There's still maybe four or five wheelbarrows' worth still in the driveway, covered with a disintegrating blue tarp.
But because... Well, it appears I never mentioned it here, but between Christmas and New Year's 2021, the sewer line running from our house to the street broke in two places -- one out in the street near where it fed into the municipal system, and one in our yard. The town fixed the first, and we had to hire someone to fix the second.
And the guy we hired left the yard somewhat less attractive than it was when he started. Among other things, his excavation brought up a whole lot of sterile subsoil laden with shale, which got spread on the top of the refilled trench, leaving a good chunk of the mulch-and-compost ring I'd put around the left-hand maple pretty much bare ground with rocks. Oh, and he didn't properly underfill the sidewalk slab he had to move for the trench, and when it went back it ended up with one end sunk six inches lower than the adjacent slab.
We ended up hiring a landscaper to come in, scrape off and haul away the sterile rocky soil, replace it with topsoil, seed it, and fix the sidewalk. So this is what things look like now, complete with weeds that encroached on the former mulch layer in the early part of the spring:
2022 - lawn repair.jpg (Size: 177.22 KB / Downloads: 52)
As for the last few wheelbarrows of "compost", we've finally decided we're going to use it to even out some uneven parts of the back yard. When that will happen... I'm not sure. But I'd like to do it before the July LBI excursion.
-- Bob
I have been Roland, Beowulf, Achilles, Gilgamesh, Clark Kent, Mary Sue, DJ Croft, Skysaber. I have been
called a hundred names and will be called a thousand more before the sun grows dim and cold....
I have been Roland, Beowulf, Achilles, Gilgamesh, Clark Kent, Mary Sue, DJ Croft, Skysaber. I have been
called a hundred names and will be called a thousand more before the sun grows dim and cold....