It was a convolution of events that led to our drastic action. First it was the pandemic. With our events cancelled and our restaurant customers ever so slowly re-opening, we THF folks had time on our hands. Then on June 2, Ron’s mom Anna May died. She was 99 years old and the youngest of nine children. She outlived her six brothers and two sisters. The Halpin girls got the better end of the family genes though, as they lived to be 101, 98 and 99. Again because of the pandemic, we could not have the funeral services she had planned and prepaid for. We could not even have a small family get together. This left Ron feeling very unsettled and with time for pondering on the meaning of life.

His once lovely and loved garden had been overrun with weeds. Our family had for years enjoyed its bounty, as did lots of our friends. But now, it was a sad sight and one we bemoaned but did nothing about. We had made attempts to get it under control or cleared out, but Tiny House Farm interrupted, as did our lack of enthusiasm for the work that would be involved. Weed pulling ranks right up there with rock picking on my list of things I would rather not do. But that was neither here, nor there and Ron dragged me and Jo along with him in his plan to clear out our yard.

When I say clear out, that is exactly what I mean. He had plans to gut everything; front, back and side yards. Then we were going to cover all the newly cleared spaces with black plastic and let Mother Nature do her job by killing all the weeds. This was not going to be a simple, done in a weekend project. We got started on Saturday June 5th as we had no Tiny House Farm plans. Because of the pandemic, Anna May’s service could not be held until Monday June 8th. The numbers of way this virus is messing with our lives is just unbelievable. And we were all edgy. We hit the front yard first. Yanking, digging, weed whacking and chain sawing everything in our way.

Ron’s chain sawing came to an abrupt stop when he spotted 2 young morning doves in our front yard tree. He was in the mood to chop the whole thing down, but he would not risk harming morning doves. So the tree got a pass. For now.

Our local dump is just a few blocks away and that turn out to be a very good thing. Ron and I took five or six or twenty loads (I lost count) of green waste there and then about the same number of dump loads. The wood from our garden beds, old pallets that our firewood stacks sat on, the sad little greenhouse that sat, ignored for 3 years; all of it went. The five trellises that Ron built for the tomato and cucumber beds went to Rudy, our Amish farming partner. Things Ron builds tend to last and I refused to toss them in the trash. Ron does have some regret about getting rid of all his trellises. We have a pair of mourning doves that lived in our yard and with the trellises gone, they lost their favorite sitting spot. He misses hearing them each morning.

Once we dug up, chopped down and dragged out everything that needed to go, we were left with the dirt, weeds and grass from the raised beds. Not a pretty site, but we knocked them down the best we could.

It is a good thing we already planned to cover the whole area with our old and critter chewed tarps. Our yard actually looked worse once we got all the tall weeds and raised beds out. On top of those we laid out the larger tarp that we used on Tiny House Farm. While we expect Mother Nature to do her thing and kill off the weeds, which will take a few years so it does not hurt to help her out a bit.

A few days after the tarps were laid down we got hit with a wind and rain storm. I had already made the executive decision to take down our rail fence. It only lined both front side yards and was in a constant state of needing repair. We have replaced all the rails and shored up every post with rocks and dirt over the years. The fence parts came in handy as we used them to weigh down the edges of tarp and plastic. But they did nothing to stop the wind from getting under the tarp and making waves. I tried to catch this in action with limited success. But as consolation prize I caught a mama deer and her baby walking along our hedge line. Do you see them? That is something else we will miss. All the critters that enjoyed our overgrown garden. And we enjoyed watching them. One of the mamas would bring her baby into our yard and bed down in the overgrowth. The rabbits and squirrels running all over the place. They were such fun to watch. But we will not have so many of them now, without the weeds that they could hide in.

This was a major project and a lot of work, but when we were done, we really felt a huge sense of accomplishment. We had tackled the beast and won.

BUT, wait there’s more.

Ron decided to take advantage of the situation and find someone who would cut down and mulch up our cedar hedges. They also had seen better days. I believe they were planted when the house was built in 1985. Now they were overgrown and the lower parts were dying off. They were a sad sight indeed. And certainly did next to nothing at keeping out critters and such. I felt rather guilty at ignoring them for years. But I have seen other houses with the same hedges that they kept cut down and still had the die off. So it was not just our neglect causing the problems. That made me feel a little bit better.

Getting ready for the hedges to come down meant we had to move all of our stacked wood piles. By piles I really mean remnants of said piles. We had gone through most of it last year. The actual wood had to be moved along with the pallets it sat on and the metal posts that held it all together. Well, was supposed to hold it together. We had more than a few collapses over the years. Last year Ron had a ready rack made to hold wood on our deck. Our previous situation left much to be desired. It involved two pieces of woods and two metal ends holding the wood in place with a tarp covering it. Our new one will hold more wood and do a better job at it. Now he wants two larger ones that would sit in our backyard and hold the rest of our wood. That should prevent pile collapses and keep things much neater.

Then we tackled the burning bushes on the other side of our house. Every couple of years we whack them down but, along with several other things, we ignored them for the past four years.

Ron took the chainsaw to the bushes and Jo and I dragged them to our trailer for the ride to the green waste drop-off. Less than 30 minutes and we were done. One more thing checked off our to do list. I would be happier though, if we had not already added four more things to that list.

Then Ron’s wood sheds were delivered and more fun ensued. We had already hauled the 4 wheeler to our house so we could use it to move the sheds into place. The plan had been for Ron to take our trailer and pick up each shed. Unfortunately, our builder Rudy did too good a job in the actual building. Very strong, very heavy and just a smidge too wide for our trailer.

Thank goodness there was a back up plan. We are after all, talking about Ron. He always has a back up plan. Now we just had to get them off the hauler and into our backyard. This was the best part of our fun. First task was to shift the sheds around so we could attach a large tow strap to it and the 4 wheeler. Took more effort than we thought it would and we needed to use the wheeler to push the shed into place. The second obstacle was our yard. The grass and the mud it was growing in refused to cooperate. There was no sliding across the ground for our shed. The edges kept digging in and creating a mud dam. We tried a small piece of plywood under the front edge but it was not big enough nor could we get it fully under the shed. Ron used the wheeler to yank and push and generally bash the shed up the slope to our back yard. In the process he managed to leave his mark not only on our lawn, but on the shed too. Nothing a good hammering won’t fix. But it was the final straw for our day. We were ready for plan G, at that time I believe.

Two days later Ron come home with Plan G, Rudy and his son David. They arrived with a long metal bar and a “come along” jack. Less than 30 minutes later, both sheds were in the back yard just where we wanted them. A man with a plan is a good thing to have around.

So here they are. Ready and waiting for our wood delivery. And for Ron to get a few tiny, almost unnoticeable dings and dents banged back into place. You remember, the ones that were direct result of his 4 wheeler use.

Thus ends our backyard gardening. Sad really, and terrible timing given what this country is going through right now. We grew so much in those years of gardening, but did not end up with the root cellar filled with canned veggies. I was really more into the dehydration process. But Ron learned a lot about growing veggies and even more about doing the necessary research to find out the best ones to grow or the ones that will sell the best. He is all about finding the new product, the one that no one else has. Which means that while our backyard no longer has a garden, we will not be without one. A simply location move will give us the chance to make some big changes for 2021. Those changes will be revealed in future posts. All I can say is that they involve a horse plowed field, an air blower, a “yet to be named” event, a whole bunch of filled out forms, and a lot of work. We will keep you posted.