Yard Work Day

Howdy,

 I'm done, and done in, for the day.  Phew.  I overdid it for sure.  Started at like 7 am when I installed my portable Master Bedroom AC here finally.  Going to use it for first time tonight.  Had to saw down the extension piece since the windows here are less wide than my place in Florida.  And I had new hoses, since the old ones were pretty disgusting looking after 7 or 8 years. 

It is even hooked up to Alexa so I can turn it on via voice, or change the temp too.

After that I went out to see if the pole-saw would reach the branches in the Oak tree, and didn't stop.  All of it, except some small, still green branches, is either chipped or burned.  I had purchased a small electric chipper, that does branches less than 1 3/4 inch diameter, a couple weeks ago.  I used it to clean up all of the fallen branches in the yard.

This time I did about a cubic yard of chips, and then the bigger stuff was hand-sawed to approximately 3 foot sections, and burned in the pit in the yard.  I think there were just over a dozen of those.   Used a lot of the smaller branches as kindling to keep the fire going.

Oh, yeah.  I ain't no boy scout.  Even with matches and lots of paper, it took me a long time to get the fire going.  Once going, it did stay happy right up until I hit it with the garden hose for about 10 minutes.  Filled that pit with water a couple times. 

So, why was I trimming the tree, when I previously hired a yard company to do it?  Because I fired the lazy b-turd yesterday.  Getting the owner to do anything was problematic.  My opinion is he has some major issues with lying and with other things. 

In the 2 months I tried to get him to do what I paid a down-payment to do, before Thursday, he had a person mow the yard twice.  Which wouldn't be too bad, except it was after I just did it myself because he kept putting it off.

Thursday he, and his newest employee (and now only employee),  did trim the hedges, and wasted a ton of time playing with some gas powered bed edger to put an edge around the shrubs and plants against the house.  Um, I could have accomplished the same thing in 1/5th the time with a hoe.  

The owner then had to leave.  To do nothing.  The worker was stuck using some ancient, broken down "slit seeder" to put down 20% of the grass seed that was on the invoice.  Hey, he didn't even have more than that in the truck.

The worker then had to use a broken spreader to put down fertilizer.  It was leaving a trail of fertilizer down the middle, and spraying a little bit 10 feet to the sides.  He did what he could.  But, once again, only had 20% of what was on the invoice, on the truck.

They were to also aerate the lawn, add lime, put down grub killer, and use a couple types of herbicide to kill/prevent weeds in the beds and the areas around trees. 

The owner said they'd be back Friday to do all that, and add mulch.

Nope, Friday the worker comes alone and has just the mulch.   Tells me the owner is trying to buy a gizmo for his weed whacker that can cut tree limbs, so they can do it from the ground.  First, those things are just circular saw blades and are dangerous on weed eaters.  Second, they can only reach the same length as the weed eater -- maybe 5 or 6 foot at best.  And, they are only capable of cutting through a 2-3 inch limb.

I was bringing down 4-6 inch limbs.

So I chatted him and said no more.  At first he tried to make more apologies and more promises.  Then he became a bit unprofessional.  I told him he could keep the deposit, and I won't "review" him, nor go to BBB.  But don't push it.  He was satisfied. 

Thus I'm the lawn guy again. 

I have a 82v battery Lawn Mower, and it takes 3-4 battery exchanges to do the yard.  Also plenty of battery blowers/edgers/weed eaters/etc.  So, I can do it without to much issue.

Let's see, what else is happening...  With the clean ducts, it is easier to breathe in the house.  Still having a few dead ants/flying ants now and then.  I keep spraying, and they keep coming.  Eventually they'll all be gone.

I've finally reached the point where there are no known big expenses to fix this place.  But it seems everyday I find something that was missed in inspection that should have been seen.  And plenty of "lipstick" on the pig spots where the prior owner was hiding issues with something to make it seem better.

Shoot, I swear the doofus took carpet fibers and pasted them in a couple of spots in the carpet upstairs to hide cigarette burn holes.   The Roomba is slowly pulling the fibers up and there are circular "bald" spots. 

And places where a dab or two of paint was put over bad wood so I (or the inspector) would miss it. 

But life goes on.

Enjoy