Starting With the Garden

Today was our first day of real hard work in the back yard. We have several overgrown shrubs and trees that need to be removed to keep them out of power lines and from overgrowing our fence. The second thing to go (the first was a tree that blew over the same week we moved in, so it removed itself mostly) was a huge overgrown super prickly evergreen that had a lot of dead parts and an awful vine that was choking parts of it and overtaking our fence. 

 Of course it was raining, but we have  the two next garbage pick-ups that will take large amounts of yard cleanup waste. Otherwise, we would have several trips to the dump that would cost us money.

 So we put on rain coats got loppers hand pruners and a saw and set to work. This photo is after two large wheeled bins had been filled and taken away. This bush is horrible stuff. It is very prickly and will embed right into your skin. I had to wear welders gloves because the little dead prickly's would fall into my sleeves when I was cutting the higher stuff. Wet leather gloves aren't fun. Neither are wet feet. 

 It actually got easier once we made access to under the tree. I was able to find actual branches and cut them with the hand saw. It started going a lot faster then. All the brown stuff is dead, super dry, super spiky pieces that we well probably be cleaning up for a very long time.

 Hey, there is a utility box back there! I can actually walk around it for the first time. We'll chainsaw the rest down and deal with the stump then. The white trash fence OSB boards are temporary dog proofing that will come down once we have them trained on the new invisible fence. We had some escapes and a six foot tall fence wasn't enough to keep them in. 

These guys are waiting to be planted along the fence between the shed and the corner that we are clearing out.