THAT TIME SHE FELL IN THE KOI POND

Well, it finally happened. I guess it was only a matter of time.  I was already worried sick today because I'd given dear, sweet Cricket Jean a Bully Stick from April's Barkbox against my better judgement.  If you don't know what a Bully Stick is, then I suggest you Google it.  It is foul and disgusting and smells like a salty, rotting carcass, which is, of course, why dogs love it. Anyway. I gave her the Bully Stick and she had a 45 minute love affair with it before swallowing it WHOLE.  It caused all kinds of tummy troubles and she stopped eating for 24 hours so when I got a call from my dog walker I was already speed dialing my vet for some kind of exploratory surgery to get the thing removed.  Instead, my dog walker calmly inquired as to where my non-white towels might live...Turns out CJ decided today was the day she would jump headlong into the koi pond. For most normal dogs, this is no big deal, but swimming isn't really in the French Bulldog wheelhouse.  Girl sank like a stone.  Luckily, my trusty Dogwalker saved her lifeand left her warm and cozy in her little crate.

Cricket Jean has had all kinds of troubles lately -- there was this incident with the Bully Stick, and another where she somehow got into my takeout sushi and wolfed down half a Unagi roll.  Word to the wise, eel avocado and adorable puppies do not mix.  I came home to a disaster I can only describe as worse than watching Human Centipede.  To make matters worse, this Friday is the very special day Cricket becomes a lady. Yup, its high time the lil ho got spayed.  I can't take her anywhere without risking unplanned pregnancy these days. So all of this combined has made for a really difficult time for her.

To ease her pain, I let her watch the one thing she loves more than putting out & Bully Sticks combined -- Katy Perry's Darkhorse Video.  I don't know if its Katy's blue, blue eyes or her harem of cat-slaves, but CJ is mesmerized.  I can literally play it five times back-to-back and she won't move from her spot on the couch. By the time the little Pomeranian comes out dancing, she's already whining for me to restart it.

Which I am happy to do, little girl.  This weekend will be just you, me, the couch and some Katy.  Love you, little boo.

THE ROAD TO HOME DEPOT IS PAVED WITH HAPPINESS

Lots going on here.

Today I am over-the-moon happy and here is why:  This evening I'm going to Home Depot, my most favorite place on earth.  Every day at Home Depot is the new happiest day of my life. Nothing gets me amped like a trip down those holy, tangerine hallways; I could spend all day in the hardware aisle just picking out screws! But tonight's trip has been made even better because I'm going with a good friend who shares my enthusiasm for home improvement AND has a car! Which means the possibilities are endless. Bags and bags of topsoil and fertilizer, seedlings, maybe a greenhouse, the arbor...or even that teepee! Although I've recently begun rethinking the arbor. In case you haven't noticed, there is A LOT going on out here. There's the laundry ladder, the rusty, old shed, the straw-bales, the flower beds, the fire pit, the ivy wall, that strange door to another realm, and now this koi pond. Its a lot to process. I'm starting to wonder if sticking another vertical structure between the laundry ladder and the door to Narnia will disrupt the balance or harmony or whatever. Not very Feng Shui, if you know what I mean.

I present to you, my door to Dimension X.

Besides.  I have enough projects to plow through -- I need to pick up a ton of topsoil and lawn seed, fertilizer and vegetable seedlings. Getting that started will be enough work for one weekend, and its a busy one already! Dear, sweet Cricket Jean is celebrating her 6-month birthday with her sister, 4 brothers and her big ol' mama at Lucky Dog on Saturday plus I have to work Sunday night. So seeding a lawn and starting some baby veggies in a greenhouse seems about the most I can manage.

Although, I do need to pick up pond treatment to prep the water for the fish, and a net and possibly even a filter. The neighbor's tree just dumped a bunch of blossoms into the pond today which looks all kinds of pretty right now...but will likely turn to yuck in a week or so.  Also sinking all that dirty slate to the bottom was a bad move: Its looking more Gowanus Canal than Koi Pond Zen right about now. Maybe Home Depot has some fancy stones I could add?

Fancy stones for Fancy Fish!

Oh yeah. And then I need another hose adapter. Like most Brooklyn properties, there is no outdoor water source here. I picked up an attachment for the kitchen faucet, but of course my faucet didn't have the proper threading to screw it on correctly. I ended up jerry-rigging it with plumbers tape which held long enough to fill the pond but wasn't terribly practical for watering the straw-bales. So definitely need to figure that out. I'm way too impatient for watering cans.  

Below is the shopping list for tonight's extravaganza.  Let's get ready to rumble!

SHOPPING LIST:

- GRASS SEED

- LAWN FERTILIZER

- TOP SOIL (3 BAGS)

- 4 TOMATO PLANTS, BASIL, CHIVES, ROSEMARY, THYME, MINT, PARSLEY, 2 CUCUMBER PLANTS, ZUCCHINI, RED PEPPERS, CARROTS, EGGPLANT, BEETS, STRAWBERRIES & BLACKBERRIES

- NASTURTIUM, CRACKLING FIRE, GERANIUMS, MORNING GLORIES, MARIGOLDS, GERBER DAISIES, SUNFLOWERS, SUCCULENTS

- POND TREATMENT, POND STONES, POND NET

- SINK HOSE ATTACHMENT

A WICKED GARDEN

American Gothic.

Well, it happened.  The koi pond is in! The edging is still a little janky, but I'll keep working on it until its level. Turns out landscaping is a lot of hard, back-breaking work.  Hours and hours of it.  I can only imagine what the neighbors think.  Here's some wacko girl in a bikini and cut offs circa 1992 waist-deep in a pit just about killing herself shoveling mounds of topsoil and rubble.  I've come to find out bikinis are not the best attire for shoveling; I have cuts and bruises everywhere and even the manicurist gave up on getting all the dirt out of my fingernails. But its done.  And I got some good sun! The whole thing just sorta happened and it didn't take very long to fill with water either.  I spent the remainder of the afternoon attempting to level the ground to lay out all the decking tiles...which, as you can see, was only moderately successful.  Its going to drive me nuts, but I'll give it another solid attempt next week.

Every time I start that fountain, I just start laughing.  Its just so absurd.

The fountain was a toughie, mostly because I lost the directions and tried to figure it out myself. Not quite like building Legos, but I got it in the end.  Next, I sunk the real lily pad seedlings underwater and floated a couple fake ones on top, and lined the whole bottom with slate so my future fish babies will have places to hide.  I had high hopes of getting the lawn done after all that, but my legs stopped working. Instead, Cricket and I spent a lazy Sunday lying out in the sun and playing fetch and drinking ice cold cans of Budweiser because this is America and that is what you do godammit.

Cricket Jean pondering the laws of physics.  

After this long weekend's adventure, I have two things to say:  

#1 There is something incredibly satisfying about building something with your own hands (even if it is a little janky).  Some days I wonder why I never became a contractor or a great builder of furniture.  I guess, in some ways, its a little bit like writing.  You put in all that effort and trial and error and blood and sweat and in the end you actually have something to show for it. 

#2. For reasons I can't quite explain, this backyard has quickly turned into some mystical, magical Tolkienesque realm.  None of my neighbor's backyards look like this.  They're all bright and cheery with above-ground pools and bocce courts and kiddie houses (or, as the British like to call them, "Wendy Houses.")***  But whenever I take pictures back here there's always mist and shadows, solar flares and tangled vines.  It has its own wild, ecosystem out here and it's quickly growing into some kind of wicked forest or Elven kingdom or something. Getting some greenery in here should help...maybe I can transform it into Fern Gully by May?

Lothlorien? Is that you?*

 THIS WEEK'S TO DO LIST: 

- PICK UP FERTILIZER, TOPSOIL, GRASS SEED, SEEDLINGS, PLANTERS, IKEA GREENHOUSE 

- RECONSIDER ARBOR

- BEGIN STRAWBALE PREP

- START SEEDLINGS IN GREENHOUSE

- BUY POND TREATMENT & FANCY FISH

- PLANT LAWN

- SIGH. TEEPEE.

*  If you don't get any of these blatant LOTR references, get out of here.  You shouldn't be reading this anyway.

*** My friend from the UK once told me this story about the time this dude knocked down her "Wendy House" and the whole time I was convinced it was some obscure British euphemism for deflowerment.  Turns out its just what they call children's playhouses. Obviously, its my new favorite thing.

OBSESSION.

5 hours of work = 10 more feet of lawn

At what point does hard work turn into obsession?  Its a very good question.  One I'm not sure I want to answer.  Its good to have hobbies and all, but its safe to say I've gone down the rabbit hole on this one...

This past week, I'd gone back and forth about pruning all the ivy vines out back.  I really like that unbridled wildness and all, but I don't want guests tripping on the vines creeping and crawling underfoot. In the end, I decided to compromise and prune all the vines that had grown into the ground where the lawn should be and leaving the rest. Easy job, right?  Well, one thing led to another and 5 hours and 8 contractor bags later, this is where I ended up.  The ivy vines had grown rampant back there, snaking half-way up the yard, around trees, up the wall and even across the power lines to completely cover another tree in the front.   Part of me was a little sad to see it all go, but the way these things grow, I'm sure they'll come back with a vengeance. Fingers crossed I can coax them up the arbor once that's in place.

We have a half-day today, so I'm planning to dig out the pond later this afternoon.  I think its time to leave the vines alone now.  Partly because I don't want to go too far, but mostly because the blisters on my fingers hurt so bad.  After all that, shoveling dirt out of a 2 foot hole doesn't seem all that bad anymore.

In other news, it seems we've reduced our cat population to about 2!  In the past week, I've only spotted Padre and Satan lurking around.  Padre's pretty terrified of Cricket, but Satan will hang out in the yard even while I'm working, so he might be here to stay. So far so good!

MORE PLANNING

Snow-bales. 

So it snowed last night.  And hailed. And dipped down to 30 degrees this morning.  So I guess I'm relieved I didn't start the straw-bale process yet.  Baby steps, Peters.  Baby steps.  In the meantime, I kept busy knocking off a couple of things I had on my to-do list all winter.  The first was hanging this little rail by the backyard door for things like gardening gloves and twine and bug spray and flashlights and stuff.  The second was giving myself a refresher on the whole gardening thing and plotting out exactly what I'm going to plant this year.

Ikea is like an Erector Set for grownups!

The IKEA rail thing was a super easy project -- so easy, I'm thinking of getting a similar setup with a bulletin board and mail organizer for the entryway.  But that's for after the backyard gets going.  First things first.

After another quick perusal of the Straw-Bale gardening book and the very special "Crops in Pots" hardcover I picked up on the street last year, I've broken down this summer's garden as follows:

Large Straw Bale #1 - 2 tomato plants, basil, chives, rosemary

Large Straw Bale #2 - 2 cucumber plants, 1 pumpkin, mint, thyme, parsley

Small Straw Bale #1 - Marigolds & Zinnias

Small Straw Bale #2 - Marigolds & Zinnias

Planter #1 - Cherry tomatoes & Zucchini 

Planter #2 - Red peppers, nasturtium, & crackling fire flowers

Planter #3 - Eggplant & peas/beans

Planter #4 - Carrots, beets & lettuce

Planter #5 - Strawberries & lavender

I have an additional 10 assorted smaller pots that I'll probably just put flowers in...and I need to figure out what to put in that giant planter by the BBQ.  I did find a baby tree in a plastic bucket behind the laundry ladder...it doesn't look like its dead, so maybe that would look nice there...I've also been dying to pick up an arbor for the back wall which I recently discovered is the back of a garage.  I'll plant last year's scarlet runner beans and some morning glories on either side and let things get wild.  My only problem is where to put the teepee!  Cricket Jean needs someplace to sit in the shade all summer.

Well.  This is a lot of work.  But not impossible.  I'd say this will keep me busy through May at least.  I broke down all these projects into a little calendar to make things seem more manageable:

Friday, April 18th:     

- Remove rest of vines and sticks from back.  

- Finish slate patio in front of shed

- Figure out where to plant that baby tree (if its not dead)

- Dig leaves/dirt out of pond & throw away old liner

Saturday, April 19th:  

- Rebuild koi pond

- Fill koi pond & set up pump

- Rake dirt and topsoil over rest of yard

- Add floating water plants

Sunday, April 20th:     

- Pick up fertilizer, lime, peat, topsoil, grass seed  

- Sow lawn

Tuesday, April 22nd:   

- Begin straw-bale prep

Saturday, April 26th:   

- Pick up arbor, 2 planters & IKEA greenhouse

Sunday, April 27th:     

- Start seedlings for planters in greenhouse indoors

Sunday, May 3rd:       

- Pick up herbs, tomato plants and plant straw-bales

TBD:                          

- Buy fancy fish the first solid week of 70 degree weather

- TEEPEE????!!!!

                                  

Meh.  This is still a lot of work.  Will see how much I get done this three-day weekend.

JESUS SOAP SAVES!

Bottle of Miracles!

At this point, I should point out that I hail from a long line of Germans.  Its not surprising then that I have more than a healthy dose of OCD when it comes to cleaning and organization. When I was a kid, one of my favorite activities was cleaning the garage with my father.  I would sit for hours sorting nuts and bolts by size and shape, paint by color and gloss, lumber by genus and species.  I'd divide the screws into phillips and flat-head categories and make sure all the screw-drivers were lined up in ascending order according to height.  It was the best!  To this day, nothing makes me happier than a perfectly organized garage, but because I don't have one, I have to make do with other obsessions.

Why do I have so many teal shoes?

Though its true I've color-coordinated every last drawer, shelf and closet space in my little one-bedroom, and test driven just about every product at the Container Store, I've recently had to up my game to really make things interesting. Oddly, its these newfangled online delivery services that have helped me develop other pastimes. For example, I derive extreme pleasure from timing the delivery of household products so they arrive just as I'm using up the last bit of the old stuff.  There's little room for storage, so ordering precisely what I need for the month has become an obsessive game -- will the Tom's toothpaste arrive just as I squeeze the last little bit from the tube?  Will Cricket's dog food last until Friday when the Wag.com order arrives?  Can I water down the dish soap until its back in stock on Fresh Direct.com?  Its a sickness, I know.  But its also unbelievably satisfying.

For me, Saturday is cleaning day.  Always has been, always will.  Saturday begins with a leisurely breakfast, a pot of strong, black coffee and then its time to tackle the kitchen, the bathroom and the floors before getting on with my life.  Sweet, dear Cricket Jean isn't entirely housebroken yet, and while I'm obsessive with the Nature's Miracle and Swiffer 7 days a week, it still needs a good, thorough floor-washing every Saturday. (I don't care what anyone says, swiffering is NOT the same as washing a floor.   It just kinda moves the bacteria around and gives the illusion you're doing something productive.)  Anyway.  I was all kinds of excited because there was a sale on some organic looking cleaning fluid at the Whole Foods this weekend.  It had this cool, vintage looking bottle and all this tiny writing on the label.  Plust it was lavender scented which just so happens to be my preferred cleaning fragrance for the kitchen.  Oh yeah.  I also have this weird thing about scents -- cleaning products used for the kitchen (dish soap, floor wash) CANNOT smell the same as cleaning products for the bathroom.  I automatically equate any scent used in the bathroom, no matter how flowery or delicate, with a toilet bowl, and the thought of smelling a toilet on your silverware is enough to make me gag.  Lately, I've been using that Mrs. Meyers Geranium-scented toilet cleanser and antibacterial spray in the bathroom and saving the Lavender for the kitchen, so you can imagine how exciting it was to find a huge bottle of that lavender stuff on sale.  I washed the entire floor almost immediately and it literally smells like a miracle, its so sparkling clean, I can scarcely believe it...but when I looked closer at all that teeny tiny writing I found out I just washed the floor with Dr. Bronner's Castile Soap, which is pretty much just body wash with a whole lotta Jesus propaganda thrown in.

If you're curious, here's a link to a very helpful article about all the Jesus Jumping -- footnotes included!

In the end, I decided I don't care that I wash my floors with body wash because this is the loveliest my place has smelled since I moved in.  There are far worse things in this world than washing your floors in Jesus Soap, people.

KOI POND CONTINUED...SALVAGE & PLANNING

Because I don't yet have the right kind of shovel and am still awaiting my pond supply delivery, I figured the best way to bide my time was to take inventory of what I have to work with here.  To reconstruct this on a budget, I'll need to salvage the bulk of the materials and replace only what's necessary (i.e the liner & pump). And so, this morning, I set out on a little archaeological dig to scavenge for what's there. Buried beneath the leaves and soil I found:

- (16) Fire bricks. (hmmm....Fire bricks???)
- (6) lawn edger type interlocking bricks
-  a big ol' pile of ventilated brick and standard, run-of-the-mill brick
-  another huge pile of slate
-  a pile of broken marble slabs
-  a pile of crumbled concrete

This is going to take some imagination because most of it was not intact, but whoever built this seems to have used the ventilated brick to hold the pond liner in place along the edge, and the fire bricks as a decorative edge on top.  Though why you'd use fire bricks for a pond, I have no idea...unless this was actually a fire pit? You could easily fit a couple of pigs in there to roast...but then why the pond liner?  Mysteries.

Well, whatever it was, I'm still turning it into a pond.  I made a few preliminary sketches on the train ride this morning to help me feel more confident about this decision because right now it looks like a big ol' disaster out back. I think I'll lay a perimeter of brick to hold down the new pond liner -- six bricks on the 4' sides and about nine on the 6' sides.  Once they're level, I'll lay the fire brick over top and use the dirt to make it level with the lawn. Those lawn edgers might look kind of cool on all four corners with maybe two more on either of the long sides. Not really sure what the slate or the marble was used for, so I'll probably just get rid of it. Maybe I can use the slate to build a path or something? Oh the possibilities...

Mad drafting skillz right here.

I'm not sure what I accomplished with this one.  But I sure had fun drawing that waterlily!

HOW TO BUILD A KOI POND IN 5 EASY STEPS

The moment I committed to rebuilding the glory that was this koi pond, was the moment I sank my summer. I always do this.  I get an idea, I spend an hour or so researching and suddenly I'm convinced its the easiest thing in the world. Which usually means its not.  Although, according to most websites, building your own koi pond can happen 5 Easy Steps:

#1.  DIG A HOLE.  Well.  That part was easy.  But I do need need to dig out the rest of those leaves, dirt, brick and other refuse festering away on the bottom.  I will also need to dismantle the brick edging to get the torn liner out which will be a project.  I'm not really sure whose aesthetic genius was at work when they built this thing out of masonry, marble, slate AND cement, but it was a helluva creative choice.  I'm not buying anything new though.  I'm rebuilding this sucker with what's already there.

#2.  INSTALL A LINER.  Once I get the old one out, I'll need to buy a new one, which seems to be fairly easy online. Except the liner sizing is two dimensional and a pond is three dimensional which means I have to do math and that's always a bit dicey.  This particular hole measures 3'10" X 6'3".  I know enough about estimating that its roughly 4' X 6'. (i.e.numbers my brain can handle.)  Apparently a cubic foot can hold 7.48 gallons, so if this pond is 2' deep, it can hold roughly 360 gallons of water. This leads me to believe an 8'x10' liner will be too small, but a 10'x10' liner might be ok, only how does one make a square into a rectangle, especially three-dimensionally?  Maybe its better to get a 10'x12' and just bury the extra under the dirt and brick?  Numbers are hard.

#3.  FILL HOLE WITH WATER.  TREAT WITH WATER CONDITIONER.  I think I can handle this part.

#4.  INSTALL AN AIR PUMP.  This too.    This kit comes with one and I follow directions well, so should be all good. I'll have to figure out how to hide the electrical cord behind the shed, but seems totally doable to me.

#5.  ADD SOME KOI.  So, as it turns out, theses bad boys go for about a thousand a pop.  And while part of me thinks its totally worth it, my Mint.com account says its not.  After a little research, I've learned "Fancy Goldfish" are acceptable to use too. Here are the ones I'm eyeing below:

Exhibit A: The Chinese Black Moor

Exhibit B: The Comet Goldfish

Exhibit C: The Fantail Goldfish

I'm a little concerned that adding fish to the equation might exacerbate my cat problem, but I'm willing to give it a shot.  And for those of you worried about Jesse Pinkman, fret not.  Even though Red Cap Organda's are known to thrive in pond situations, JP's a house fish, guys.  I wouldn't do that to him.  

Don't worry, guys.  I'll stay in my fish condo.

Today's NEW TO-DO LIST:

1.  GET RID OF CATS...BETTER.
2.  FIX GIANT HOLE.  BUY SUPPLIES FOR KOI POND!
3.  MAKE DECISION ABOUT CRAWLING VINES.
4.  GROW A LAWN!
5.  DON'T FORGET THE STRAWBALES ARE COMING.
6.  CLEAN OUT POND & REMOVE OLD LINER.
7.  BEGIN STRAWBALE DECOMPOSITION.
8.  BUY "FANCY" FISH.
9.  REBUILD KOI POND.

IN DEFENSE OF THAT CROSSFIT THING

A month and a half ago, I joined the cult of CrossFit. I'd always been curious about what goes down inside those "boxes" or whatever it is they call them, so one night after binging on last season's Madmen, I impulsively bought a Foundations introductory package to see what it's all about. The reaction from my family and friends was fairly hilarious -- most people assumed I was going to end up paralyzed or brainwashed or worse.  The general consensus seemed to be "If you're going to do this, I don't wanna hear about it."  Well, 9 classes later it's safe to say I'm hooked. They sure know how to suck you in. The social psychology behind this whole enterprise is pretty brilliant, actually. There's a pack mentality involved with this kind of social workout. You show up the first day and are immediately surrounded by hard bodied, strong as nails men and women, there's heavy metal blaring from the speakers, and before you've even begum learning about WODs and AMRAPs and "The Girls" or what have you, you want in. I mean who doesn't want to look like that? Then you look closer and you see there are people like you there, girls in running tights and yoga pants, scrawny dudes spotting some grandpa bench pressing away in the corner, or fuller figured folks losing that 50 lbs, and they're all busting ass, working just as hard as the ripped Adonis snatching 300 pounds overhead. I can do this, you think. If I put the work in, I can be this person too.

Then there's this other element. I once read somewhere that nothing makes you feel young again like learning something new. There is something really special about trying something and finding out you're really, really bad at it. We adults strut around our comfort zones it took us 30 years to build, doing what we do best and doing it well, because that's the recipe for success in America.  You sort out your strengths from your weaknesses early on, pursue things you're good at and keep at it, which is great and comfortable except it gets kinda boring. You meet the same kinda of people, do the same kinds of things and at some point you just feel plain old and wizened and set in your stubborn ways.  I'm telling you, there is nothing like hoisting a barbell over your head to make you realize there is plenty left in this world that you know absolutely nothing about. You're terrible and it's embarrassing and they're constantly adjusting you and pointing out what you need to work on and you realize you haven't felt this way since rope climbing in 6th period gym class, or the time you botched the word "ecclesiastic" at the spelling bee. 

And then there are the results. If you're doing CrossFit, you've probably also gotten sucked into the whole Paleo or Primitive lifestyle thing which is actually one of the easier things I've ever tried.  After completing Tracy Anderson's magical Metamorphosis puree program, Paleo feels like you're eating the world!  Now I'm not knocking Tracy, girl knows what she's doing if you want to look good.  I lost 30 lbs off that dang DVD series and it helped me reprogram what I put in my body and why.  Funnily enough, I happened to run into her recently and just about ripped off her twiggy, little arm thanking her for changing my life.  Its true. Homegirl has cornered the market for sculpting hot, useless bodies good for sex and bad hiphop dancing. But while I liked my results, I was tired of feeling useless all the time. I wanted this body to be capable of other things too.  But the real reason this Crossfit/Paleo lifestyle has hooked me, is the results. They are FAST.  I've been doing this only a month and a half and I can see marked, visual changes already. While your body weight doesn't change all that drastically, you can more or less watch the fat melting off your body which is super awesome.  Plus, aside from being INSTANT sore all the damn time, you just generally feel better.  I'm lactose intolerant and gluten-sensitive and removing both those from my diet has made me a much happier, more energetic person.  Its the point where the minute I  have a couple french fries or Pirates Booty or vodka sauce,  I'm immediately sick to my stomach for the rest of the night and because I associate that feeling with those foods, I generally don't crave them anymore. (That's not to say, I don't still enjoy an ice cold beer every once in a while.  I'm not insane, people).

So I'm doing this three days a week. And I'm cooking Paleo every night. And I'm even keeping up the Tracy Continuity DVDs on my off-days and throwing in a little running in for good measure.   So sue me.  It makes me happy.

I will not be silenced.

BOYS. WHO NEEDS EM.

What a difference two days make.

Well. 2 days, 10 hours and 15 heavy duty contractor bags later, this is where we're at.  I spent the bulk of Saturday raking and bagging the INSANE amount of toxic, rotting leaves back there. Turns out, last week's visual was rather deceiving.  It took 5 hours just to get the bag 'n tag done, and another hour just to heft them out to the curb.  I probably should have waited until the leaves had dried out beforehand but I honestly couldn't stand it anymore.  Once the leafing was done, I took a pair of garden clippers to the masses of snaking vines creeping and crawling all over the place.  There's still quite a tangle out back behind the gaping crevace but I haven't decided if I want to tackle that next or keep it they way it is -- I kinda like the melancholy tableau it makes against the back wall, with that swathe of hanging ivy and the weather-beaten laundry ladder -- that mysterious wooden door! Its all very wild and melodramatic and part of me wants to keep it that way.  Maybe pick up an arbor at the Home Depot and get some morning glories and climbing roses going.  This place needs more thorns!

To break up the tedium of scooping handfuls of leaf and cat refuse, I also took out half my supply of snap-together IKEA decking and made a little fire pit deck over the dirt area in front of the shed. I'll have to keep my eyes peeled for some stools washed up along the urban tide*, or maybe I can ask a friend to cut up some logs for sitting on. I also took it upon myself to take an inventory of the shed - my predecessor, good old Alan Masters, left me a wealth of garden supplies: planters, terracotta pots, plant stands, fertilizer, seeds, gardening tools, hoses...the list goes on and on. I tossed some of the creepier items like the rusted cat carrier and corroded biscuit tins but, on the whole, I have a good little garden center going on in there. It may smell ever-so-slightly of cat piss and mildew but, hey man, it's functional.

Near the end of the day, I decided it was high time I tackled the mysterious pit in the center of the yard.  There is something both repellent and alluring about that thing.  I probably should have ignored it and moved on with my life, but I can never seem to leave well enough alone. After pulling up a few armfuls of leaves and bricks and broken planters, I discovered this was no ordinary hole. The first thing I noticed was the remnants of a folded camping chair...no, TWO folding camping chairs...and once I'd pulled those out of the dirt, I realized that was only the tip of the iceberg. Truthfully, there were many moments when an internal voice urged me to stop -- part of me was mentally preparing to dig up a body or uncover some ancient portal to another dimension or something.  I wanted to stop!  But I couldn't. I was caught in this kind of trance, pulling out item after item, muttering "What the ****, what the ****" over and over with each new and horrific discovery, not wanting to know what I would find next, but still needing to know all at the same time.    

Cricket Jean knew better than to standby during this whole thing. She'd crept back into the kitchen to hide, which seems to be her natural response to just about anything.  I kept calling back to her "Cricket! You are NOT going to believe this!" , "Cricket! You have seriously have NO IDEA!" but she stayed put, cowering in a corner somewhere until, finally, I ran into the house wild-eyed and covered in filth. Snatching her squirming little body in my grimy hands, I held her aloft over the abyss like a demented, squealing lioncub.  "DONT YOU SEE WHAT I FOUND, CRICKET.  DONT YOU SEE WHAT WE HAVE?!"  In the end, I pulled out the following out of this makeshift landfill:

- two folding camping chairs

- one chaise lounge

- assorted broken pots and planters 

- two garden hoses 

- one weed wacker

- one metal umbrella pole (not a gas main!)

- one metal hammock frame

- one rotted bathrobe in buffalo plaid 

- two Heineken beer bottles still intact

This came out of the earth.

It was quite impressive, actually. I couldn't decide if my dear predecessor grew fed up with his gardening ways and threw the sum of his efforts into the pit to burn, or if it was the tenant before him and Alan merely pretended it wasn't there.  Once I'd bagged it all up and dragged it to the curb with the leaves, I was left with this:

My lovely koi pond!

Which I think we can all agree is a koi pond.  Or was a koi pond at one time.  I've thought about filling it with dirt and I've thought about building a deck on top of it, but in the end, probably the most cost-effective thing to do is just repair the existing pond.  For a hundred bucks, you can buy a kit that includes the liner, a pump, an underwater light and even a pair of silk waterlilies. Throw in a couple goldfish and BAM. Fancytimes are here to stay.

You would think that's where this weekend story ends, but I somehow still felt the need to get rid of all the rusted, nasty yard furniture Alan bequeathed to me when he skipped town for Texas.  Which seemed easy enough until I got stuck in the hallway with a glass table that was an inch too wide to fit through the doorway, and was wedged there cross-legged until 11:30pm unscrewing rusted bolts with a pair of pliers and a monkey wrench I found in the closet behind me.  I guess the moral of this story is, while, in theory, you should probably have a dude handy to take care of this kind of stuff, in the end, you really can do anything yourself.  

Today's new TO-DO LIST following this weekend's epic productivity is below:

1.  GET RID OF CATS...BETTER

2.  FIX GIANT HOLE. BUY SUPPLIES FOR KOI POND!

3.  MAKE DECISION ABOUT CRAWLING VINES

4.  GROW A LAWN!

5.  DONT FORGET THE STRAWBALES ARE COMING NEXT WEEKEND

MO SQUARE FOOTAGE, MO PROBLEMS

My magical, mystical fantasy realm.

I gotta say.  Spring has been a long time coming this year.  And if you know me, there is nothing like a good backyard project to really get me amped for the warmer weather.  Luckily, my new place is a Do-it-Yourselfer's Dream.  The space is double the size of my last yard, and was, at some point, carefully landscaped and cared for, although the prior tenant, Mr. Alan Masters Esq., seemed to have let the place go the past three years: there's about a foot and a half of leaf-cover and the ivy vines have grown rampant across the entire lawn. The effect is that of a magical, mystical Secret Garden which I have fallen completely in love with.  There's something a little bit badass and a litte bit romantic about the place, and I want to preserve that untamed quality while still making it a relaxing spot to entertain guests this summer.

My biggest challenges are as follows: 

#1.  With this yard, I have inherited an army of (count-em) NINE feral cats living out back.  I don't feed them, but somebody must because boy are they FAT.  They like to use my shed for sunning themselves by day and sheltering by night, they loiter all over the BBQ and love to break my terracotta pots.  Worst of all, they have literally shit over every inch of the yard. And while my puppy, Cricket Jean, finds this utterly compelling, I sir, certainly do not. 

Because New York City does not have the budget to pick up stray cats, and because no one else in the neighborhood appears to ever go outside, I have learned that this cat problem is my problem and my problem alone.  After extensive research, I have learned that my only recourse is to take a 2-hour seminar with the New York Feral Cat Initiative to learn how to trap all nine of these guys without getting rabies and schlep them to Bed-Stuy to get them spayed or neutered.  Which sounded sorta reasonable until they said they give them back you.  You know, to prevent other ferals from moving into the territory.  (Duh) When I politely suggested that maybe I take only one or two home with me, communication ceased and because I've effectively burnt the bridge with the last ally I had, I have to take matters into my own hands.

This leaves me with a couple options.  And while I've never been much of a cat person, I don't really have it in me to accept the numerous offers to bring in the bebe guns.  I'm a little embarrassed to say I've even named them all -- Apparition, Tigerlily, Poncho, Padre, Stinky, Filthy, Satan, Succubus, Pinkeye and Troubles, if you must know, and Apparition, Tigerlily and Troubles were all in the running to come home.  I've tried blasting them with supersoakers with moderate effect (mostly its just really, really fun) and though you'd think having a dog would scare them off, she's so terrified of life, they just about kill themselves laughing.  I did read somewhere that dispensing fox urine around the premises should scare them off for good -- how a Brooklyn-born cat knows a damn thing about foxes is beyond me -- but before I go down that road, I figured it can't hurt to tidy up the place first.  It is apparently common knowledge (so says the Feral Cat Initiative) that cats bury their feces. So in theory, if I remove all the leaves, they should miraculously disappear. Right? 

Tigerlily at her post on top of the shed.

Kids these days:  Apparition, Padre and Troubles up to no good.

Okay, #2.  Not too long after the snow melted, as I was making my daily rounds out back, I noticed a subtle indentation in the center of the yard.  After a little poking around, I realized there is actually a GIGANTIC 4X6 FOOT HOLE SMACK IN THE MIDDLE OF MY PRIME SUN. I have no earthly idea what it could be or why it is there.  Is it a fire pit?  A koi pond?  An Ancient Indian burial ground or mass grave?  I lifted a hefty slab of marble and discovered a long, metal pipe which I sincerely hope doesn't mean its some weird slumlord access point for a gas main or something. I really have no idea.  But I'll tell you one thing.  I hate it.  That is exactly where I planned to put the tee-pee.  

This hole is going to take some creative problem-solving to get around.   If there's one thing I love, its a project, and this certainly is one for the ages.  Here's my TO-DO LIST for the weekend.  Let's get to work.

TO-DO LIST:

1.  RAKE AND DISPOSE OF 80 MILLION POUNDS OF ROTTING LEAVES AND CAT WASTE.

2.  GET RID OF CATS.

3.  FIX GIANT HOLE???

4.  ASSEMBLE FIRE PIT DECK.

5.  BUST OUT THE YARD FURNITURE.

6.  ARRANGE POTS & PLANTERS.

7.  REMOVE VINES CRAWLING ALL OVER THE PLACE.

7.  GROW A LAWN!

8.  FIX MANUAL LAWN MOWER FOUND IN SHED.

9.  ORDER STRAW BALES FOR HERB & VEGETABLE GARDEN.

10.  BEGIN STRAW BALE DECOMPOSITION PROCESS