"The Gnomes Are Popping Up Like Easter Eggs!!!"

Tuesday, we closed on the house and officially became homeowners. That, of course, meant that on Wednesday, a raccoon moved into our chimney, but that's another story. The very first Saturday in our very first house, Thomas and I got up uncharacteristically early and started working on our backyard.

We've actually been living in this house for over a year, but for some reason, working in the yard never really seemed like a priority until now. Go figure. Thomas and I don't spend a whole lot of time in our backyard, so I guess we just turned a blind eye, for the most part. As soon as those papers were signed, though, it was like a veil was lifted, and we realized we had two choices: A) clean up the yard, or B) start allowing urban explorers to film youtube videos on our "abandoned" property. We went with A, but there was some honest to God discussion on it.

Seeing as we're, more or less, landscaping virgins, this has been a definite learning experience. We're nowhere near finished with the project. In fact, we're at that "it looks worse now than before we started" stage. Still, I thought I'd share some of the "fun" lessons we've been taught.

• Ladders and gardening tools are ridiculously expensive, for no other reason than because they can be. Seriously, what's a ladder, really, besides a few pieces of metal welded together? Why on Earth is the cheapest one fifty bucks? Oh...because I can't reach my celing or gutters without one...that's why. A garden hoe is a broomstick with a flat piece of metal stuck on one end, and it's fifteen-freaking-dollars because I need it to break up the weeds and roots in my overgrown flower beds.
• Bamboo grows wild in Alabama. I had no idea. I thought maybe my mom planted it, because it was in a bed she planted when I was kid (we bought my childhood home, by the way. Not sure if I mentioned that before), but she seemed just as surprised as I was. It's a real pain in the you-know-what to pull up, too. I'm pretty sure bamboo is the devil.
• Much like bamboo springs up in my yard at random, so, apparantly, do gnomes. I found two yesterday. I've named them Laurel and Hardy.
• The trunk of a Nissan Versa can hold, at least, six large bags of drainage rock. Getting them out of the trunk is the hard part. (They're still in there. I think we may need to devise a pulley system.)
• This yard should have come with a Quija board. My dear, departed Dad built our courtyard (and drainage system, but that's another story, as well), and while it's lovely, it does have some idiosyncracies that I just can't quite figure out. For instance, there's an absolutely gorgeous rockwork walkway that leads to the courtyard. The sides are completely rocked over, save for one 2-foot by 3-foot (approx.) patch, which was left unrocked, and held a few planters. It's entirely random and makes no sense. I'm putting a fairy garden there, but I would love to know the real reason for its existence. He didn't just run out of rock, because the rock continues on either side of the patch. It's just random.  
• If you give my husband a chainsaw, he goes from Clark Kent to Bruce Campbell in 0.4 seconds. No shrubbery is safe.
• When spray painting, even in well-ventilated areas (like outside), wear a mask. I coated my sinuses in black paint, and, let's just say that my sneezes would make Sam and Dean Winchester think I was possessed by a Leviathan. Ew.
• On the subject of painting: never trust the label on an old can of paint. Just because it says "white", and you know for a fact that the house hasn't had trim that was any color other than white in several years, it doesn't necessarily mean that the paint is white. Check first, and make sure it's not, say, beige, before you waste an hour taping off a dozen windows for no good reason. Make sure you have a brush, too. (oops)
• After several hours of non-stop yard work, be prepared for people to look at you funny when, in your delerium, you burst into a fit of giggles--for no discernable reason--while stumbling around in the middle of the Walmart soft drink aisle. I'm fairly certain that if we'd tried to buy any alcohol on that trip, we'd have been turned down, and possibly escorted out of the building.

Hopefully, we'll get the hang of this soon. I'll keep you posted...