If you’ve been following some of my stuff, you’ll know that in “Border Wars,” I was putting up a huge grape stake fence that was reminiscent of the Great Wall of China. It took me about three weekends and couple of “sick days” to finish this job – not to mention a whole bunch of cash. Blue-eyes and the curtain climbers would alternate in holding the grape stake while I continued to pound my fingers. I had placed a level string from post to post to maintain a consistent height on the fence line. All the holder had to do was have the top of the stake just below the string line. Blue-eyes was pretty good at this, but the kids, being somewhat shorter, didn’t prove to be real competent. I came to the conclusion that they all lacked depth perception. But now the property was almost fully enclosed and the insurance company was a happy camper.
One of the things that is important in a project of this nature is called planning. I thought I’d done a pretty good job in laying out the fence line and executing post holes in their proper spacing, including positioning these all in place, facing the right direction and being somewhat level. Minor problem! J.J. forgot to plan for gates. For you “techies” that’s not Bill, but the kind that swing. I don’t think Bill is much of a swinger. This caused a minor flap in that everybody in the family had an idea of where the gates should go and what size they needed to be. I think the suggestions for gate location got around 20!
It was finally mandated that we had to have a gate for the corral large enough for a truck to get through – and a small gate so we didn’t have to open the large gate to get the horse out. So that dictated a large gate up front, near the entrance to the backyard so a truck could get in and – naturally, a small gate so that we don’t have to open up that large gate. We had to have a small gate at the other side of the front of the house so that we wouldn’t have to walk to where the other gate was. There was an area of the property that was not enclosed because it was basically a dry creek, except in the winter, with a storm drain and was about 3 feet lower than the nominal surface of the yard. So naturally, we had to have a gate there so we could get into the area to clean out the weeds and check the storm drain. We got that sorted out, and I had to revise my layout and sink additional posts.
At this point, the priority list mandated the labor battalion (meaning J.J.) move to concentrate on the front of the house. What little lawn there was, was mostly dead. The previous owner had installed a sprinkler system, however it didn’t seem to be working. I located two control valves and turned them on. Nothing! I looked around side of the house and found another valve and turned it on. Eureka! There was water shooting up all over the area and most of it was not going anywhere near the lawn. I decided to try to isolate the problem, and discovered that the guy had attempted to put in both a drip system as well as sprinklers. It clearly wasn’t going to work. After a few hours of trying to figure out this mess, I came to the conclusion that this was the sprinkler system from hell. I suspect this guy was ether drinking something or smoking stuff.
Rather than mess around trying to fix the problem, I just ripped out the lawn and the old sprinkler system. Good decision! The guy had put in flexible tubing, and unfortunately it had kinked in a number of areas and was absolutely useless. In the process of digging out this tubing I discovered tubing for water in areas that went nowhere at all, no input, no output and no sprinkler head.
I went down to the local garden store and got a truck load of loam delivered after I had rototilled the entire area. I got it all spread out, and dug the trenches for the new sprinkler system. I used PVC and had a lot of fun gluing my fingers to the pipes and the various fittings. By the time I finished, my fingers were purple and mostly stuck to each other. One of the more interesting things I learned was that this glue likely contained either or some other interesting substance in it, and you could get a little silly in a hurry. I found myself having a strong desire to say “Hey Dude,” and to begin sniffing the can. “Surfs up!” I jest as usual.
I got some good advice on the type of grass seed and put in the new lawn. I was really quite surprised at the variations of grass available. I’m talking about the type for growing lawns, not that other stuff! The new sprinkler system worked like a champ and I proceeded to stand around and watch the grass grow. About a week and a half later, a bunch of green stuff started poking its head above the mulch. Sweet success!
The guy at the garden store told me I had to keep the new lawn very damp and should water twice a day. Because of this, any little varmint that wandered into the area would leave its little footprints. That’s how we discovered that a mass of dogs, raccoons and cottontail rabbits inhabited the neighborhood. In some instances, the raccoons had dug up small areas, but the ground was so wet I couldn’t walk on it to repair the damage. I figured I’d fix it after the lawn came in. The cottontail rabbits didn’t do much other than to leave a little trail which is not really noticeable. The dogs left some rather interesting deposits that I just chose to ignore.
One morning I heard a bunch a racket in front and went out and found three of one of my neighbors horses racing around on my new lawn. I had put up small string barrier, about a foot tall with red plastic ribbon all around the entire newly planted area so that people would realize that it was not to be walked on. Two of the horses had gotten tangled up the string, and had pulled all the stakes out of the ground and were racing around, somewhat panicked, attempting to get free from whatever was on their hoofs. My new lawn was now a great big mass of horse hoof prints.
I recognized the horses as belonging to my neighbors in the back and went over to his house and woke him up. It was at least 6:30 in the morning. Time to get up, anyway. He answered my banging on his door in his PJs, cute things with little red hearts. I told him his horses were out. He didn’t seem surprised. He asked, “Where?” and I pointed in the general direction of my house. With that he turned and shut the door, clearly an unhappy camper. That’s what he gets for wearing PJs anyway. I’m a skivvy’s man myself, but that’s probably more than you wanted to know.
By the time I got back to my place, the horses were gone, along with my little string barrier. My neighbor showed up a little later and his only comment after surveying my newly destroyed lawn was “Where’s my horses?” I felt like suggesting, “Just follow the string and the muddy hoof marks!” I don’t think he’d had his morning coffee. Naturally, he did not comment on the obvious massive destruction to my infant lawn. Maybe he thought I had planted it that way. If that were true, I assume he went home later and said to his wife, “Boy! This new guy has a unique idea about what a front lawn should look like.”
He didn’t say squat – as in a “Hey! I’m sorry. Can I help repair this mess?” or even return to the scene of the crime. I figured he must be a soul mate of my “Border Wars” neighbor. I later discovered that his horses got out pretty regularly and went down the street to visit their buddies at the stable, which was a couple of blocks away. Within three weeks, my new friend’s house was “For Sale.” J.J. strikes again, making new friends all over the place and changing the basic topography of the neighborhood. I guess maybe I had discovered yet another non-candidate for “Welcome to the neighborhood committee.” Blue-eyes’ comment was “If you keep this up at the rate you’re going, we’ll be living in this neighborhood all alone!” I actually thought about that, but came to the conclusion it would be extremely difficult and too complex to accomplish. Besides, some of them were very friendly.
Moral of the story There’s two types of grass and sometimes you need both.
J.J. Addingnuttin 