Last long weekend, I found myself with two consecutive days in which I was neither working at the vet clinic, nor training dogs. And the weather was beautiful.
What should I do with all this time?
When a friend offered to take Owl for the morning to play with her kids, I realized what I finally had time to do – MULCH THE BACK YARD.
Last year, after yet another fruitless assault on the weeds in our lawn, PH and I decided to just mulch it all. We could cover the weeds and the bare patches alike and leave little green islands of decorative plants, which were currently being choked out by the monstrous dandelions.
Thus having made such a monumental decision, we proceeded to do absolutely nothing about it for a year.
In the meantime, our back yard was basically unusable, except as a back-up place to put the dog when he needed to pee.
The weeds, fed by Vancouver rains, grew so high that we were afraid to walk out there, lest we step in a hidden dog turd. Weed whacking would tame things temporarily, but leave the yard looking rough and patchy.
Basically, given the combination of too-well drained soil and living in a rainforest, our choices were either a bald yard, or a yard that made me feel like a character from Day Of The Triffids.
So I hied myself to the gardening centre, and picked up bags and bags and bags of mulch. I brought them home and we laid down newspaper and cardboard (supposed to be a biodegradable way to block out light and prevent weeds from regrowing) and covered them with mulch.
It took two days of sweating in the sun and three trips to buy more mulch before we finished.
But it was totally worth it. Check it out:
