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.

MOTHER NATURE DOES NOT HAVE A SENSE OF HUMOR

 Well, that relatively small snow storm that was headed our way changed from under 6 inches to 6 to 12 inches and came in at more than that.  Around here generally the largest amount of snow falls “to the north and west” - ie.  inland.  A big deal was made that this storm was to have the heaviest snow to the south and east – ie. closest to the ocean.  

The storm started overnight Saturday to Sunday (late enough that we were able to go out to pick up Chinese food for dinner as we have been doing on Saturday nights.  When I put the kitchen garbage in the outside pail around 10 pm light snow was starting to fall.  It snowed steadily on Sunday.  It snowed heavily on Monday.  It snowed lightly on Tuesday.  After putting that garbage in the pail Saturday night we stayed in the house until yesterday (Tuesday) when we started to clear the snow.  We managed to move the thigh high snow in the original driveway cut by chopping it down with the shovel and blowing it to the side of the driveway and move the snow between the car and the sidewalk with the blower.  Our neighbor on that side of our house had cleared the sidewalk across that part of our driveway (on his side) with his heavier duty snow blower for us – how nice of him (yes, I sent an email thanking him) – this being an oddity as normally no one helps us.  We were working on clearing the driveway as very light snow fell.  

How much snow did we get here (as opposed to any point on Long Island, NYC, upstate NYS, NJ or CT or anywhere else this storm hit?  Hard to say.  When we went out today (Wednesday) the snow between our house and the circular part of our driveway was maybe 4 inches.  The snow across the circular part – next to the (more or less) center semi circle of the driveway (and where we park our van) was around 18 inches high.  The snow had been blowing so if take an average it was around 11 inches – the storm dropped 30 inches in at least one community.  The snow in the two driveway cuts was close to 3 feet high.  Even after the snow had stopped and the road was clear – the snow plows, sand trucks, and salt trucks kept coming.  At 11 am this morning the road was again plowed.

So, today when we went out to clear the other (about) 2/3 of the driveway – including the second cut – the first cut into the street had been partially refilled and we had to clear out that side again.  With no more snow falling it seemed easier to blow the snow – then again, I was not the one pushing it most of the time – when it was hard to push into the packed snow we each took a side and both pushed.  We started probably around 12:30 after eating an early lunch and finished close to 5 pm.  

The news reports had been saying to expect 2 more snow storms – one at the end of this week and another on Monday.  Luckily they have changed to a light storm at the end of the week and maybe rain on Monday.  

We are also dealing with a second situation. When we went to the doctor in November he changed the dosage of one of my husband's medications – no refills, husband is suppose to come back after 90 days to have more blood taken to see if the new dosage is correct.  I was very careful to count when he had to go back – next Monday or Tuesday - for the blood test.  As husband has been sitting here in a panic over all the snow for the past 2 weeks he is also in a panic as to when we will get to the doctor for the test between all the storms (and he does not like to drive in snow) and then go a few days later when the doctor gets the results to pick up his prescription (as well as some other prescriptions we need to renew).  Since we can now get the car out of the driveway (unless they plow yet again) I will get up early tomorrow (for us) and call to see if he can go for the blood test tomorrow.  

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

An old adage is “Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today.”  I have changed it to “Never put off until tomorrow what needs to be done and cannot be if it snows tomorrow.”  If we had gone last week to the doctor the blood test would be done with and the prescriptions renewed and we would not have to worry about weather permitting us to do both. 

EVEN WHEN THE CORONA VIRUS IS ABOUT - THERE ARE CRAZY DRIVERS WHO SHOULD BE ARRESTED

I digress from corona virus posts this week.  We live on a 4 lane mainly main road, which is residential at this point along the road at least two or three miles – the speed limit is 40mph.  Unfortunately drivers tend to treat the speed limit as a suggestion they don't like.  Across the street from the house next door to us (to the south) is a small local residential street which comes into our road – it does not continue across to side. In the 30 or so years we have lived here I can easily recall 6 accidents which have happened at this intersection – when speaking with my “new” neighbor (only here about 6 years) she remembers 3 accidents just since she has been here, so 6 in 30 years is a low estimate. 

Husband and I were involved in one of the accidents.  We were stopped in the left hand lane waiting to turn left into the small street at in early evening, with car lights and turn blinker on.  Our side of the road had no traffic at all, while the other side had a flow of traffic.  Before he could turn a car came speeding up our side of the road and hit us full speed in the rear of the car.  Luckily no one was hurt – our car, however, was totaled  - the rear of the car was in the back seat – good thing no one was sitting there.  Another accident propelled a car coming from the street across from us onto our lawn – husband was out just in front of the house taking down our Christmas wreath (due to which I will always remember this happened on Good Friday, hence why I need to be better organized).  Luckily the driver braked before hitting him and our house.  So we really know about accidents here.

Last Friday night we heard 3 horrible sounds, even before opening the door we knew there had been an accident.  Due to the virus we did not want to walk outside, but when we saw the rear of a car in front of the house to our south and heard the horn blaring, we knew and called the police.  Since the only thing around here that brings neighbors out and together is a car accident, a crowd quickly assembled (most without masks if I may add same).  We decided it best to remain in the house due to the crowd and watched through our open front door.  Now, as far as we knew the 2 cars collided in front of the house to our south.  Police  (several cars) came -  volunteer fire department ambulance and volunteer EMS ambulances came.  Since after some time the ambulances left unused we presume no one was seriously injured.  It took several hours before the cars were towed away and all was quiet. 

We noticed that there were large pieces of debris in the cut of our driveway and we were concerned that our van parked on the driveway parallel to the street was not hit.  We looked through its windows from our door and the windows all seemed intact.  I figured if we found out the next day that there was damage, we could call the police and get the info about the accident – safer to stay in and not risk getting corona virus.  The tow trucks finally came – the front car was put on a flatbed truck.  The rear car was to be towed on the tow bar of the tow truck.  The driver had trouble getting the car positioned – he ended up dragging it by the rear end to in front of our house and then grabbing the front.  The law here is the tow company which picks up the car(s) must clean the debris.  When we had our accident the debris was shoveled up from the road – this fellow barely swept it to the curb.  When the tow trucks left it was after midnight and we decided to wait until the next day to check the van.

The next day being Saturday I went out to bring to in the mail.  I was to check the van for damage and see if we had “anything” to clean up from the accident.  OH MY!!!!!!!  The entire front of our property was covered in pieces of car ranging from most of a license plate holder to under 1” big as well as most of the two windshields!!  Our driveway (which is a semi-circle), the sidewalk, the “right of way” grass at the street and the street itself were all covered.  I went back and told husband and we went out to work on the mess.

We started by picking up the larger pieces and putting them in a garbage bag.  We moved onto using a broom and snow shovel (use broom to push onto the shovel) to clear the smaller pieces  and glass bits – starting in the street and then the sidewalk .  We got to a point where all the pieces we noticed and the sections of glass that had stayed on the middle layer of plastic  that was attached to it were picked up and thrown out.   When all we had left (we thought) were the tiny pieces of glass all over, husband thought to get his shop vacuum for us to use.  He did most of the vacuuming. 

It was in the high 80Fs that day and sunny.  Husband was bending over as we worked – when he bends over he gets dizzy.  We reached a point after a few hours that he was rather unwell.  I got him settled in the house with air conditioning and a cold drink and went out to clean up our cleaning up. 

Our van is parked on the dirt in the semi circle of our driveway (this allows our car to be driven in and out of the driveway easily and the van can be also be driven in and out of our property through using the ends  of the driveway and the dirt semi-circle). Under the van in the dirt was a lot of glass.  We had decided that if we got all the grass except that under the middle of the cars – clear of glass in line with the tires we would pull the van straight forward and then be able to vacuum the rest of the glass.  That was where we left off.  I put away the vacuum, broom, snow shovel and put the second started garbage bag next to the mostly full one at the curb – almost all of which were from the accident. 

As I walked with the various tools to the house I found other pieces and had added them to the garbage bag before I closed it.  In front of our garage – which is the opposite corner of our property from where we thought the accident had occurred – I found yet another small piece of debris – I was concerned as our neighbor on this side has two young daughters- one of them only 3 – and was worried that debris might be in their yard and one of the girls touch it or step on it and get hurt or the 3 year old might even put it in her mouth.  I knew they were not home and figured I would call the next day.  Husband had to go up to sleep before dinner due to how sick he felt.

Next day was still in the 80Fs so I told husband to move the car and then go into the house.  I found much glass and small pieces of debris where I would swear there was no more the day before.  I vacuumed the dirt and then had him come out to check a spot he told me had glass to make sure I had gotten it all – ha ha ha!  We were still finding pieces of glass today (Wednesday) that we somehow missed and yesterday saw a glint of something shiny and found another piece of car less than 1” big while we were outside putting the vehicles back in place from having our air conditioner installed yesterday.  On Sunday when I vacuumed as I went back into the house I found a two good sized chunks on the neighbor's lawn (to the north with the 2 girls) and picked them up and added them to our bags. 

I was unable to reach her by telephone and when I went out Monday to get the tarps we use as covers on our RV bed during the day while traveling to cover our bed in the house while the ac work was being done, the neighbor was out with the girls and her husband.    I explained about the pieces I had found and picked up and suggested she check her side of the fence for debris.  We have not really seen each other during the pandemic and standing 6 ft apart we talked about the accident. 

It did not occur where the cars ended up – I sort figured this based on the debris field.  She had the accident on video.  A friend had been parked in the street in front of her house and a car came roaring along – in the parking lane – doing what had to be 60 mph at least and hit the parked car, pushing it front of our house and hitting it again and continuing to push it to the front of the neighbor on the south's house hitting it once again on the way!  Neighbor was surprised that the driver was not tested for alcohol or drugs and was allowed to leave.  I also found out that I had wrong phone number for the neighbor and we also traded email addresses.

The neighbor to the south emailed us the morning after the accident as she had not seen us standing in our door as she was standing in her door, to tell us we probably had a mess to clean up as they had at their house. 

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK – One cannot control what happens by the acts of others.  Be careful driving and parking to try to avoid crazy drivers.  One should be prepared to clean up the major mess left behind on one's property.  Luckily this time no one was hurt badly (though the driver should have been tested at the very least and probably arrested) – who knows what will happen next time. 

Stay safe and stay well.

THE SIDE PORCH

I actually got something done this week - last Saturday when we got home I ended up dealing with the porch.  We have a small enclosed entryway to our kitchen door which in the most technical sense is our “porch”.  It is aluminum with screens on the top half of the walls.  It has a shelving unit with cabinet doors on the bottom of it on the wall between the door to the outside (facing the street) and the door to the kitchen.  On the back wall there is my husband’s boyhood work bench.  This has a shelf under it the top which holds a box for recycling of cans and bottles - just stick my hand out the kitchen door and toss in and I stack the newspapers on top of it for same.  There is a small garbage pail between the house wall and the table where I toss the soda bottles for return for deposit.  It also has some other storage items.  The rest of the porch is filled with stuff.  There is a narrow pathway from the door to door. 

What is in it which takes up so much more of the space?  Well, I tossed the plastic chair which was in the far corner years ago so that’s gone. I admit that much of this mess is mine.  I keep empty cardboard boxes to use to put out the recycling.  Our township gave out special green  plastic square boxes to put the recycling in (cans and bottles) when the program first started.  When we bought the house the box came with it.  I would dutifully put it out with our cans and bottles weekly and put the newspapers, tied in a stack (sometimes two stacks or more if I had been clearing out papers or it had been raining heavily or snowing the week before) either next to it or in it every week.  If we have a lot of snow it is a problem putting it out as where it goes cannot be reached if there is mounds of snow - sometimes I will leave it in our driveway cut, sometimes I hold onto it for the next week.  Nice and easy.

I am pretty sure that I mentioned that we live on a main, 4 lane road.  The sanitation workers did not neatly place the box back where it belonged on our property, they would drop it in the road.  Cars would hit it.  Eventually it was in pretty bad shape - even taped back together and it disappeared - my assumption being that the sanitation workers took it.  I called the department and they told me to come and pick up a new one.  So I drove down - about half an hour each way - to get a new box.  In the interim they had made the box larger.  The new box did not fit in the work bench.  Big problem - it did not fit anywhere usable and we could not figure out what to do with it.  Shortly after my sister-in-law was selling her late mother’s house and I had an idea.  My in-laws never believed in recycling so they had their box as originally given to them sitting in the garage.  I took my large one and exchanged it for their smaller one.  Worked well for us and the people in the house would probably have children and need the larger box anyway.  Well at some time since this box also was destroyed by being thrown in the street and disappeared I had to come up with a new idea.  (In the interim the sanitation department had dropped off the new, even larger, full garbage can sized recycling can which sits tossed behind the garage ever since as it would hold 2 months of our cans and bottles.  What really annoyed me about them leaving this can was it was left on the driveway, in front of the house - if only they did that with the boxes when I was using them - at the start of July that year - when people like us are away and it stands there as beacon that the house is empty.)

My solution has been to use cardboard boxes that come into the house to hold the recycling.  The box itself is recyclable so they just take it all.  To do this I hold onto cardboard boxes as we get them - small ones such as cereal boxes are good when I just have 4 soup cans and so on up to larger size boxes which can take a couple (few?) weeks worth when I have not have not been able to put out the recycling. (Really big ones can be cut in half to use for 2 weeks.)  They were all just  tossed and a mess.

I have not had a chance to return soda bottles and cans since doing so at the start of December.  Weather, things that needed to be done, etc. after my embroidery guild meeting had stopped me from me from doing so.  I had 3 large clear garbage bags with same floating about the porch. 

There are also several large spray bottles for poison ivy, killing weeds, etc. floating on the floor of the porch.  A couple of them are empty - but we were not sure how to dispose of them as they are “hazardous substances” and cannot go in the garbage.  (Since clearing the porch out a bit last weekend I have checked and they can only be returned at “STOP” events (stop throwing out poisons).  So we have to make a note and get out early enough to get to one - hopefully the July one as the June one is not near us and the July one is. 

Using a small plastic bag I was going to throw out I moved these into the far corner of the porch after I cleared out a full large garbage bag that was sitting there, I then put the plastic bags of soda bottles behind the bottles so both are out of the way.  The cardboard boxes which were kept were put on top of the same bags.  We had a large garbage bag in the middle of the porch to toss, well, garbage into.  That was moved further into this corner. 

We have a short office paper sized garbage pail in the porch.  I put our spare, sealed bag of snow salt in it and then put the started bag on top of it.  (The other spare bags are in the snow blower shed outside this porch.) 

We have a kitchen sized garbage pail in the porch which holds some of the assorted, brooms and shovels in the porch - I added some more of the lighter weight ones into it.  The three snow shovels should go into that same shed until next winter. 

Well, the porch is not really cleared out (I did not go through the large shelving unit, but much, if not all, of what is on the open shelf areas is needed and I did fell like going into the doored section - especially since I had not intended to do any of this) but it is so much better.  We can easily walk through it. 

The garbage bags were put out by the garbage pail that actually holds garbage outside the house - next to the snowblower shed.  Garbage pick up would be Monday and it could not go out to the curb before Sunday night.  I had 2 large black bags of garbage and a smaller white kitchen can sized one also.  I also had two relatively small filled bags with pieces of our driveway in them.  (One area of our driveway is falling apart and we can keep picking up the pieces as we are afraid that in winter if we use the snow blower it will send the pieces flying.) So I put those two bags out also.  Sunday night when I put all this at the curb I also added the usual kitchen garbage bag.

I am also taking smaller bags of the soda bottles - one put in the car as one bag of bottles is returned to get them rid of them in small amounts.  Husband hates the entire process (see the comment about his family not recycling in the body of this post) and I had been saving them up to take monthly.  This has become a problem this year and I would not have a chance to do so again until September.  I plan to get rid of the bottles a small bag at a time.  Once we are caught up the same bag or less will be returned weekly.

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -

Sometimes when one never has time to do something, it suddenly becomes “oh carp, we have to do this NOW.”  If that happens do what needs to be done.  If you can prevent yourself from reaching that point - do it before it reaches that point.  Oh, and of course, the snow shovels still have not been put into the snow blower shed.