Holding it over a barrel

While my parents were here a couple weeks ago my dad and I took the rather bold (for me, anyway) step of planting some grass in the yard.  Prior to their visit I had gone to Lowe's and purchased, on the recommendation of a store clerk, a bag of something called Turf Builder.  At least I think that's what it was called.  I do know it was specifically not called Grass Seed, which is what I was wanting, but the guy said this was better.  Way better.  So I snapped up a bag of this so-called Turf Builder which was, like, a million times better than regular grass seed and stuff.  And you know, it might actually be.  But when my dad and I spent the evening in the yard raking and sowing and watering, all I could think was "Hmm...there's a lot of stuff here, very little of which actually resembles grass seed."

I watered it vigorously each night for a while, then let nature take over, and even with somewhat sporadic rains to keep things all properly moisturized and whatnot, the results have not exactly been promising.  True, a some verdure has been spotted in the formerly lifeless dirt patch on the western side of the yard, but it's more along the lines of weeds than actual grass.  I'm keeping hope alive, though, and someday we'll get things to grow out there.  Which brings me to the project my wife and I embarked on last week: the construction of a rain barrel:

It was my wife's idea, and I think she's really on to something here.  We like to water a couple shrubs and one specific tree each week and we think it would be kind of cool to do it with water that just kind of shows up out of the sky from time to time.  The barrel we're putting together isn't exactly like the one in the video, and so far all we have is the barrel itself, but I think we're on to something with this.  We need to figure out a good way to divert water from a downspout, but this one looks promising. Hopefully we can get it finished up soon and test it out with some of the spring rains.

I should also mention that while my parents were here we got an incredible amount of stuff done around the house including, but not limited to, the painting of three rooms.  We made sure to take time for some fun stuff too (which is not meant as an implication that painting with parents isn't fun, but you know what I mean...) like going to an art fair downtown and playing some cards.  It's cool having a place for friends and family to come visit, especially now that we have a place with a proper guest bedroom and bathroom.  :)

These things don't grow on trees...

One of the curious things about owning a home is how much there is to know about all sorts of situations in which I never previously found myself.  Before owning a house I had not given much thought to the concept of cleaning a dryer duct, figuring out paint colors for a given room, or pulling weeds from the front yard.  But these are just some of the joys that come with home ownership, and yes, I use that word intentionally.  I try to not think of the various processes and odd jobs around the house as chores, but as learning experiences (even though when it comes to choosing paint or hanging pictures I just as often as not get kind of frustrated with the whole ordeal) and, yes, a chance to buy tools.  Hey, I'm a dude.  ;)

One thing about which I am almost entirely clueless is yard care.  I get that there's grass out front, along with some tall green things like trees and shrubs, but I don't really know what to do with them.  A couple times a week we put the hose under one of the trees that's not looking so great, and in the summer I mow the lawn often enough to keep it from looking unsightly, but a lawn just isn't something in which I really want to invest a lot of time.  That's partially (ok, mostly) what led to our weird bagworm problem last fall, and what also led us to finally call in a tree-care professional to come take a look at our situation this week.

Turns out our friends Jon and Sarah were right:  the bagworm-infested pine tree is, sadly, dead.  The good news is I now have an excuse to get a nice shovel and spend an hour getting rid of it.  We also have a couple other trees that Nate, from Nate's Tree Service, said could use a bit of trimming.  Fortunately I can do a lot of it myself, but not on the big one out back.  That'll take a professional's touch, along with more equipment than I could reasonably purchase.  We're now in that do-we-go-for-it-or-leave-it-alone phase of the decision process that seems to be common with a lot of homeowners, and right now I think we'll stay in a holding pattern for a while and just wait and see.  And in the meantime we'll keep watering the cypress tree out front and hope it starts looking better soon...

Bagworms?

I was out in our back yard a week ago and struck up a conversation with the guy next door.  He was out playing ball with his young son and I was on a mission to inform a particular spider that he would have to build his web somewhere other than our back porch.  We got to talking about work, the weather, church groups, and other sorts of neighborly subjects that are fairly commonplace for backyard discussions here in Oklahoma.  Soon he looked at our pine tree that is adjacent to the fence bordering our yards and made a simple observation.

"Looks like your tree's got bagworms," he spoke with all the confidence of a guy who's had his own yard for more than a little while.  Not even certain which tree he was talking about, I just sort of agreed more out of politeness than anything.  He pointed to the evergreen (you will notice, no doubt, that in referring to it by such a generic term that I obviously have no idea what particular type of evergreen it actually is) and, specifically, to the brown pinecone-like things that were hanging from the branches.

I had noticed these things before, but being the not-gardener that I am, figured it was just a bunch of pinecones.  I mean, they looked like pinecones, but the fact that our tree was also kind of dying never really made any connection to me between the two phenomenæ.

Not a pinecone. Who knew, eh?

Our neighbor said that they weren't so bad, really, and all we had to do was pick them off and throw them away.  Sounds simple enough, right?  Well, turns out it kind of was.  :)  This evening my wife and I were out in the yard for an hour or so with gloves on, picking the little buggers off our tree like it was the week after Christmas.  They were kind of gross and a tad squishy, and even though I didn't see any actual worms, I didn't exactly go looking for any either.  We're also supposed to spray the tree with some stuff called Sevin, which my dad used to spread around the yard when I was a kid to keep the bugs at bay.  That'll be tomorrow, though, and hopefully in the coming weeks and months our little tree fella will find new life once again.

Don't worry, little tree...soon you'll be good as new!  (hopefully)

I didn't do an official Bagworm count, but it was probably over 100.  Yech.