Task #1

I hate ornamental junipers.

 

Some asshole made a killing in the '50s and '60s selling these hideous creatures that populate the suburban and rural streets of America. I must harbor some posttraumatic stress--like maybe I lost my favorite stuffed animal in one or the neighborhood bully forced me to seek refuge in one as he belted me with a barrage of dirt clods--because every time I see them I want to kill them. And kill them I did. Before I even considered working inside the house I knew the shrubs must die. How could I think about painting or cleaning or repairing the house when those filthy monsters lurked outside nearly every window?

 

Thanks to the good folks at the Priest Lake Idaho Department of Lands I honed my skills with a chainsaw. Still, it wasn't easy. Like cutting into a spider web of death amid a dog-haired forest of doom I ran the chainsaw for three straight days before seeing light on the other side. Decades of dust, insects, decayed leaves, gasoline, and bar oil filled the air and coated my clothes, hair, and skin.  Inch by inch and gnarled, mutated, twisted branch by branch, I hacked that crap out of my life and stacked the remains in award winning funeral pyres to be burned at a later date when the sky is gray and looming and full of moisture.

 

 

 

And now I can breathe easier and at least recognize the house as a house and not some sort of cursed, child and small animal devouring horror home.

 

 

The awesome beauty of a good stump grind and new plants in waiting. Now then, where were we?