Installing a Deck?

Kathy's been thinking of putting a deck in the back yard. (that is, getting me to put a deck in the back yard.)

The past weekend, we got our air conditioner condenser moved from the back yard into an ideal sheltered spot in the front, so we've freed up a good size chunk of space in the back. The backyard is a nice, regular shape that would easily fit a nice deck. I wonder how much of the yard I should cover with the deck?

The only thing that worries me a bit is how stable the ground is in the backyard. It tends to be a bit on the muddy side, to be honest, the drainage there isn't that great. Our patio stones there shift pretty drastically in the winter time and spring time. I've been wondering about how I can improve the way the water drains away from our backyard, and it looks like we will probably have to cut away part of the widened driveway to do it, since that's the direction the water wants to go in. We never really had any problem with the drainage until we widened the driveway, and it looks like that is the culprit. I wonder if it's something I can do myself, or if I'll have to hire someone to do it.

Blog-Slacking

Just doing the usual routine of going to work, going home, and hitting the computer a bit.

We planted a bunch of tulip bulbs in the front garden so we'll see what the results look like in the spring. This is kind of a reminder to myself to take some pictures of them when the time comes.

I haven't fixed the car yet, but one of our neighbours is a mechanic and kindly offered to look up the cost of a couple of parts for me, which I accepted. He said that bending out a couple of panels would be easy enough too. Hopefully we'll clean it up before the winter.

I was thinking that getting a bigger car would be a good change, maybe with all-wheel drive. Nothing as big as the Jeep we used to have, but I'd probably feel better if we got rid of one of our little cars, after all we have the baby on the way and it'd be reassuring to have a vehicle that won't be crumpled like a napkin in a serious crash.

Anti-wasp measures

Wasps started building a nest on our back door again.

A couple years ago I figured out a decent solution for keeping them from doing it, after checking out what other people on the web do. We just hadn't gotten around to putting one up this year. They build every year otherwise. This time they'd just started and I pinched it off while it was still just 2 empty cells. Sort of wish I'd taken a picture, oh well. I don't know why they like our door so much, none of the other townhouses in the row seem to have this problem.

Anyways, what I do is stuff a paper lunch bag with other scrunched up plastic and paper bags, and shape it into a cone. Then I tie off the top with a couple of twist ties, and stick it up on the wall by the door.

Scouting wasps think that the bag is some other wasp's nest, and they don't consider it a valid building site. They don't build new nests in other wasps' territories.

This has worked for the past two years without any problems. Here's some pictures, its neither stylish nor glamourous, but it keeps the wasps away.

Allen.

Fake wasp nest in place

A closeup - this year I put a label on it in case the neighbours wonder.

Here's how it's hooked on, lets see if it lasts thru the rain.

Front yard fixup

More of a a shabby bit of dirt than an actual yard, we've neglected the front yard of our house for years. I mean, we mow it when it gets too long, and but we don't water it, and haven't really watered it since we started having watering restrictions a few years ago - the lawn mostly withered from lack of water and we stopped caring about it at that point. Looking out at it last week, it just looked really sorry, so Kathy and I decided to do something about it. We scraped away the mostly dead grass with a rake, and removed what was left of the back third to make a flower bed.

I went by one of those places that sell patio stones and various other concrete bits, and picked up about $70 worth of driveway curbing to use as the edge around the flower bed. It took 2 trips to pick it all up with our little car, but it wasn't too far away so it was all right I suppose.


After we laid down the concrete, we filled the flower bed with soil. We have a giant cube of soil in the back yard that we used while reseeding the back lawn, so I carted the soil over to the front with a hand truck and a garbage can. Since the distance was around the whole townhouse block, about 10 homes, it worked better than a wheelbarrow with a single wheel.


We also put a good amount of soil down on the remaining grass as well and reseeded the area. Kathy says she wants to plant some shrubs, and I think it should look pretty decent once it's all done.



Edit May 13 - a week later the grass is starting to grow back through the soil, and we planted some perennial plants:



Allen.