The Backyard, Area B

I'm going to go a bit out of order from the picture showing the areas of work in the previous post. After clearing out big trash items such as loose fence posts, pipes, piles of old wood, garden stakes, random flower pots, and broken lawn chairs, we were able to start focusing on specific areas. We started out with Area B due to the fact that it was covered in Poison Ivy.  We wanted to get it cleared out as soon as possible. With our boys playing in the yard while we were working on it, we wanted to minimize the chance that they would get caught up in it.  I am happy to share that neither of the boys got any on them.  Aaron and I, however, did get a few spots on our arms but were able to treat it fairly quickly.


We were naïve in the thought that we would have this area cleaned up in a weekend or two.  We thought we would pull an old fence down, throw some trash out, rake some leaves, cut out a couple of small trees and finally clear out some weeds and vines. WRONG. As I mentioned in the previous post, this area was full of items that we couldn't even see due to the amount of leaves, trees and vines.  We pulled out an old metal swing set that had collapsed, wooden light post that was propped against the shed that we didn't know was a light post because the foliage was so thick, a dog bed (along with a collar and leash), plastic and cement flower pots, and a couple of car tires.

There's a swing set in that greenery.

Can you pick out the light post?



When we started work on this area we had already filled our first dumpster to the brim and had it hauled away.  We thought we would be able to load up any other items we came across in our truck and bring it home to toss in our own trash.  We thought wrong.  Again. As we cleared out this area we moved all the trash to a pile on the driveway and we quickly realized we would need another dumpster.

The trash pile before we started loading it into dumpster #2



We started working on this area on July 29, 2017 and by September 3, 2017 this is what we had accomplished.
 



March 2018

By this point fall was setting in and we needed to get a few other things accomplished before winter came.  So we didn't put any seed down until this spring.  Later this summer we plan to get a stump grinder out here.  But for now, the stumps will just have to be worked around.

Next up, I'll show you Area C.  This area was my nemesis.