MOWING, SNOWING AND KNOWING WHEN TO HIRE HELP

 Well we finally did what we needed to do.  We hired a gardener.  

We used to have a gardener whose employees came weekly and mowed the grass – mostly in the backyard as the front of our house is mostly paved driveway – and cleaned up the leaves and such.  We actually had several of them over a time.  The last one disappeared – we were waiting for his people to come and clear the snow one winter a decade or so ago and he never came.  He did not answer his telephone.  We called our former gardener who had “sold us off” to this one and he checked.  Our gardener had moved back home to another country.  

Husband decided he (we) could deal with the mowing and seasonal cleanups and we started doing same.  We hired a company to clear the snow in winter as that can be a bit much for us – depending on the amount of snow we get.  This worked a couple of years and then the snow clearing company said it was only doing snow removal for commercial properties – as did and has every other snow removal company we have found.  

So we have gone along for some years dealing with it all ourselves – and husband is not what he used to be in terms of what he can do (which is why I have been helping/doing much of the work) and spends the fall and winter in terror of being snowed in and not being able to get out of our house if we need to.  

We managed to get through doing the mowing, cleaning up, and snow removal as well as we could.  But then the pandemic came along.  In 2020 we were staying in the house almost continually.  In late summer we had to go to our garage (which serves as husband's wood shop so it was needed before during the year).  The garage sits behind our house on one side and the regular door to it is on the side.  We needed something from the garage in late summer and when we went to go into the garage we saw our backyard – there was waist high grass and weeds!  We realized we could not handle it and decided to ignore it, let it all die over the winter and start anew in 2021.  

But 2021 was not much a better year and we again forgot about the backyard.  I knew that we would not be able to deal with what had grown in the yard – “weed trees” - plus poison ivy was probably running loose also.  So we discussed it and decided that in 2022 we would hire the same gardener as our next door neighbor used.   I even made notes in my cell phone and computer calendars to remind me to start the process in March 2022.

Of course I missed March and did not get in touch with the gardener until May.  He is very nice.  How nice?  Turns out he has helped us before.  During the winter we had a large snow storm – the snow was light and fluffy and we easily cleared it away.  Unfortunately the county snow plow crew did not come through until the day after the storm and the sidewalks/driveways had been cleared and the light snow was thrown back onto them as HEAVY PACKED snow.  We set out again to try to clear the snow chopping off bits of the packed snow and shoveling it.  A pickup truck with a snow plow on the front stopped and told us to move away from the snow – he then drove up the driveway partway and broke apart the packed snow.  He would have done same with our other driveway cut but a snow plow came through again (so glad they came twice two days after the snow and not at all during the snow) and said something to him and he had to leave.  When the gardener came after I called him to talk about what we needed – turned out he was the good soul who had helped us?  

His crew has come twice (it started raining heavily the first day) and cleared out our backyard.  It is now rather bare.  He suggested he would bring new dirt and fill in so backyard was even and reseed – but, he warned us, we would have to make sure to water it regular until the grass was growing.  I agreed.  I then remembered  - the back water faucet is shut off as it had frozen and water was dripping.  So before he comes and does the reseeding work we have to get a plumber to come and fix the faucet!  

Husband had been very nervous and tends to oversee a bit too much – I try to keep him in the house and not out bothering anyone.  

Today we went out and bought a new window well cover and put it in place.  We are hoping that the basement flooding that we had during Hurricane Ida last year and after wards whenever we had heavy rain will no longer happen.  The water seemed to come in through/around this window and the cover was gone from it.  We did not have the same problem by the other window whose cover remained intact and in place.b

And we can actually walk in our backyard – even go to the shed back there.  Which reminded us – we need to fix one of the hinges on the shed door!   And he lists residential snow clearing on his website!

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

Sometimes one has to give in and admit that they cannot do something.  When it is something which even children can do (mow grass) it can be even harder to admit that one can no longer do it.  But one has to learn their limitations and give in and hire someone to do what they can no longer do.