finish removing the pile behind the shed

wait for spring :)

I can obsess about things for long periods of time, and work away at them by myself, making feeble progress. But then one day, I’ll lament again about something yet again. It could be that is the last straw and S is sick of hearing about it. Or it could be that I say just the right thing and he actually sees what I’m talking about in a new light. Or something. At any rate, every now and then my pet peeve will become his, too. And then he wants to deal with it ASAP.

This has happened re: the pile behind the shed. Already, some progress has been made, and we have a plan for more progress (but, alas, time is in short supply).

But now that there’s a bee in his metaphorical bonnet, I am more optimistic about this pile disappearing than when it was my self-imposed project alone.

did OK with keeping it up. But boy, did they have skeletons behind the shed!

Not literally—or at least I haven’t found any yet. But now that it is warm, I am back to removing that pile. Every week I dig up and bag more detritus.

It looks like a mulch pile; that is what kept us foolishly and innocently unconcerned when we bought the house. But dig around a little and it is awful. In among the leaves, I have so far found barrettes, wall hooks, plastic flowers, chunks of pavement, plastic pumpkin bags that people stuff with leaves, pool toys, and other things I can’t-or don’t want to-remember.
And it is smelly when you stir it around—and I don’t mean honest leaf mulch rot. I mean ick. I have to change my clothes right afterward; I can’t stand the smell! Thank goodness for my nice washable Sorels!

I can continue with this project, which I had been plugging away at last summer/fall.

When we had our home inspection, it could not have been pouring harder. So, we didn’t poke around behind the shed at the back of the yard. Mistake! The pile of “leaves” there turned out the have plastic bags, old toys, and other random [expletive] mixed in.

So, I’ve been slowly eliminating it, by shoveling a few bags of it out at a time and putting it in the trash. Our trash service only allows us one barrel a week, and I refuse to pay extra to get rid of this pile. (You gotta love small towns; trash isn’t a community service).

Obviously I couldn’t do this in the winter, as it was frozen solid. But now it is time to get going on it again. I want it gone, gone, gone!