Another Brick in the Wall

Today I started in on the outside of our new home. Just like the interior, the property needs a lot of work. It would be bad enough if it had just been neglected, but unfortunately, the previous owner decided to use parts of it as a garbage dump. Let's just say, I'm not going to want for things to do on my weekends and evenings any time soon.

To begin, I fired up the lawn tractor and spent a couple of hours mowing. Best guess: it's been about a year since the last time anyone cut the grass. Thank god for the tractor. It powered through like a champ.

The lower field, freshly shorn.

After that, I set about tackling two stone and mortar planters that were starting to collapse. The first, near the front entrance, had one wall that was beginning to fall outwards. The second planter ran along the side of the house. It too was falling outward, and it was built such that the soil level was up above the level of the stone siding of the house. This sort of thing is NG as it leads to water and insect damage on your siding.

First, I tore out the damaged wall of the front planter to convert the planter into more of a retaining wall. Next, I began tearing down the side planter. Holy crap, did they use a lot of cement! I made sure to save the stones and slate caps for later user and hauled the broken up cement and cinder blocks to the drive, where at some point in the near future, I'll need to throw them in a dumpster.

The front planter, day 1.

The side planter, day 1.